Break Myself
by Colt
Summary: Percy struggles after the prophecy, and Nico struggles with some personal problems while trying to help his friend, that has to remain ONLY a friend. PercyxNico, but very, very slow-building. No OCs. BOOK-verse. language/later hints to Mature content
1. Chapter 1

**Beware: there be spoilers! This takes place sometime after **_**The Last Olympian,**_** the final book in the Percy Jackson saga. I own nothing of said book series. If I did, there'd be a lot more Apollo.**

**This was written for my friends K8 and Laz, cause for the first time dyslexia and ADHD are good misfunctions to have. Any misspellings I shall try to blame on my innate nature to read Ancient Greek.**

**Break Myself**

_I'll willing to break myself_

_To shake this hell from everything I touch_

_I'm willing to bleed for days_

_My reds and greys_

_So you don't hurt so much_

_So you don't hurt so much…_

_-Something Corporate  
_

**Chapter One**

It was the smell that drove Nico crazy.

The smell that clung to his clothes, his hair, and even seemed to reek from his pores. Sulfur. Or rotten eggs, as most people made the comparison. And dirt. In the underworld, it wasn't so bad. Everything smelled like sulfur and it was in the ground, so who noticed when the dark haired boy stank of them? He was the son of death, after all. It was natural for him to smell like that.

But above, in the land of the living, not so much. People wrinkled their nose around him. Even the other demigods at Camp Half-Blood, who knew who he was even if they had never seen him before. The son of the Lord of the Underworld. The only child in the Hades cabin. The boy who smelled like death.

So after every jaunt in the Underworld, Nico spent no less than an hour in the shower, scrubbing himself down to the point of raw and furiously running his hands through his long dark hair. He tried to keep separate sets of clothing between the Underworld and the camp, the only places he had to call home. But the smell still transferred. Hades' cabin was probably the only cabin with a fancy indoor bath and laundry. When he designed the cabin, Nico figured it would be useful to him and to the siblings that followed, despite his father's denial and Persephone's narrowed eyes.

Siblings. He opened his eyes and stared up at the water cascading from rocks like an indoor waterfall. He wanted someone to share his cabin with, someone to talk to – someone to tell his problems to. Bianca was getting tired of being summoned so often, and she could only say so much because apparently, the dead have different priorities. Despite that, Nico wasn't exactly… comfortable telling her what weighed heavily on his mind these days.

Nico sighed, and got a mouthful of hot water. He stepped out from under the water to cough it back up, then raised his arm to his nose and sniffed. He couldn't smell the mix of sulfur and dirt anymore.

So he dried off and dressed, pulling on a black shirt emblazoned with the camp logo in red. No way in hades was the son of death being caught in an _orange_ shirt. Nobody looked good in orange, except Aphrodite's kids who looked dashing in anything. Even then, some were a little iffy.

He made sure his sulfur-and-dirt clothes were dropped in his laundry pool to soak before he headed out into the morning sunshine of another summer day at Camp Half-Blood. Nico winced at the bright light that caused his eyes to water. Days in the dark underworld did nothing to help his day vision. He scrubbed at his eyes quickly to clear them, just in time to see Annabeth push against Percy's chest.

"I'm… I'm sorry," Annabeth said meekly.

Percy mumbled something back that even Nico's exceptional hearing couldn't pick up, then turned and left in a way that really reminded Nico of a dog running away with tail between legs. Annabeth looked close to tears – the kind not caused by sunlight - when Nico stepped up next to her. "What's up?" he asked as casually as he could.

The blonde jumped in surprise before whirling around to face him. "Nico! Has anyone told you that you're as silent as death?"

"It's been mentioned," Nico replied before repeating, "What's up?"

Annabeth tried to mask wiping her eyes by rubbing at her nose. "When did you get back?"

So she was trying to play off that everything was fine. Bull. "Percy just retreated faster than Aphrodite's cabin in capture the flag. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're being evasive."

"You're being intrusive."

"Still being evasive."

Annabeth snorted in a pathetic way that sounded more like a whimper through her nose and looked like she was about to cry again. Alarms went off in Nico's head – Annabeth, architect of Olympus, level-headed, Xena-is-nothing-compared-to-me, Annabeth – was being emotional. Maybe it was that time of the month. "Annabeth?" Nico asked carefully.

"It's nothing," she repeated hastily, and her tough as nails demeanor settled back on her face. The near-tears disappeared as she nodded towards the mess hall. "C'mon, we'll miss breakfast."

Like you could ever miss a meal at Camp Half-Blood, where food was summoned at the demigod's whim. But Nico didn't bother to point that out as Annabeth moved ahead, her chin high. He fell in step behind her, and wondered.

The new mess hall had to be expanded to accommodate for all the new tables – one for each god. Hermes' table finally had elbow room at least, but some tables were still remarkably void, like Hades'. As Nico slid himself onto the bench he had all to himself, he cast a glance to Percy, miserably picking at blue eggs and ham.

_Paging party Sam-I-am…_ Nico thought as he summoned his own breakfast, and did the obligatory partial offering to his father at the fire. As sausage, bacon, and pancakes go up in smoke, he glanced back at Percy, who still hadn't eaten a thing.

Nico kept his eyes on Percy, who occasionally glanced to Athena's table then looked away quickly. Like that wasn't clue enough.

Being alone at a food table usually meant finishing quickly, because most people don't like eating alone. Nico wolfed away the less than half portion he would normally eat. Being malnourished was just a given when you were the son of death. He finished shortly after Percy just pushed his plate away and left the mess hall. Nico got up, shooting a glance to Annabeth to see her watching Percy's exit, before following him back into the blinding sunlight.

The camp was already bustling with activity. Some kids from Hermes' had apparently shot jello-filled water balloons at Ares' cabin, who were currently retaliating with manure from the stables shoveled from the back of the flying chariot. Archery lessons were in full swing, arrows occasionally so far off their mark they buried in the field where Percy…

Was _supposed_ to start teaching sword class. Instead, he was heading down to the water. So, Nico followed.

Percy walked with his head down, hands jammed deep in his pockets, and wafting the leave-me-alone aura like a raging tide. Nico knew the feeling well. Percy stopped at the water's edge and plopped down where the water could lap at his legs up to his shorts and just stared out at the water.

Well, now what?

Nico paused and just stood there, wondering what to do. He had followed the hero of Olympus, but what he planned to do was still in the dark. He thought about returning to camp when Percy spoke.

"Staring at me won't do anything, Nico."

That was as good an invitation as any, so Nico approached and sat just behind Percy where the water wouldn't touch his black sneakers. He gazed out at the water, and the silence reigned over the two boys for a moment before Nico asked, "What exactly are we looking at?"

Nico expected some profound answer, something that the son of the sea god could see that he couldn't, some unappreciated beauty. But Percy just said "Nothing."

"Oh." Nico paused. "Why?"

"I'm thinking."

"Don't smash the pea," Nico replied before he could employ his mouth brake. Percy finally looked at him, with a half-smile on his face. Finally, a decent response. But Nico could see the emotional struggle there too.

"So…" Nico floundered. Girls were better at this, weren't they? "What are you thinking about?"

Percy sighed and looked back at the water. He didn't answer, for a time long enough that Nico began to get bored. "Do you think I made the right choice?"

_No, they're green in the book_, Nico thought as he asked, "About what?"

"Turning down the gods' offer. For immortality."

Nico shifted uncomfortably. Sand did not make a good seat. "I…You-what?" Very eloquent.

"Annabeth…" Percy started, then sighed, then started again, "Annabeth is going to Mount Olympus. To work on rebuilding it. She wants… she wants to stay there. For a while."

Nico wondered just what that had to do with the previous question. It took some squirming of thoughts to get around to finding a connection. Percy had turned down their offer, so he could be with Annabeth. And now she… she was going to Olympus. For a good long while, it sounded like. How long could designing an immortal city take?

Then again, knowing Annabeth's anal perfection tendencies…

"Sorry man," Nico apologized awkwardly. Percy made a weird noise that didn't seem to mean anything. "But… it's not forever, right? She'll be back."

"Well, yeah." Percy shifted about himself. If he wasn't part of the sea himself, his underwear would have been soaked. "But I kind of… asked her to stay. To not go."

And that probably set something off, because Annabeth was not someone you asked to stay. Nico felt vaguely annoyed at the blonde girl for abandoning Percy for her dream. "Didn't go over well, I take it."

"No, we're… we're fighting. I think," Percy finished lamely.

"Oh." So not a breakup. "What now?" They'd probably make up once she got back, or before she left even.

"I don't know," Percy shrugged. "I just... don't know."

Great. Nico swallowed and stood up, dusting the sand off his holey black jeans. "Just got to get your mind off it for a while, Perc." He tried to keep the squeezing in his chest from getting tighter. "She'll come back, great hero-dude like you."

Percy glanced up at him and Nico held out his hand to help him up. "'Sides, don't you have a class to teach…?"

Percy's eyes widened. "_Di immortales_!" Then he turned and ran back for camp.

Nico laughed and called after him, "Forgot, huh?" He let the laughter follow Percy out of earshot, then it died on his lips. Squeezy-pain in chest was worse. He sighed horridly, glancing down at the sand. He wished he had some food and drink handy. Then again, Poseidon might not be too happy with him summoning the dead so near his territory. And it's not like Bianca could offer advice. Or his father. Never – he would never tell his father.

Nico wished he could speak to his mother. She would understand – she was his mom, after all. But he was forbidden to summon her spirit.

So he walked back to camp, feet dragging and head low like one condemned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Shorter chapter... faster posting schedule... meh. This is going to be updated on a "Whatever, whenever" basis anyways.  
**

**Chapter Two**

Nico woke up in a dead sweat, bolting upright in his bunk and gasping for air. When he realized it had just been a dream, he scrubbed his hand across his face then wrinkled his nose. Apparently sweating brought out the smell of sulfur and dirt again.

Then came a hard knocking at his door, and Nico realized that had been what woke him up. For a moment Nico frowned, annoyed. He would have liked to see the dream play out. But the annoyance melted away when he heard Percy calling through the door. "Nico, wake up!"

Nico got up, and suddenly realized his very obvious problem. He tried to will it away as he staggered to the door, but the aftereffects of the dream lingered about him and hadn't been dispelled by Percy's voice. Actually, it only seemed to strengthen his problem. So he unlocked and opened the cabin door and held it between him and Percy to block his lower half.

"What?" Nico asked groggily.

"You sleep like the dead," Percy accused. Nico frowned. If only it were true. Percy looked closely at him. "Hey man, you alright?"

"Yeah, fine just… scary dream." The dream itself had been nice, but the implications were scary. So technically, not a lie.

"Oh," Percy said in that tone of understanding, as only demigods could understand the weight of each other's dreams.

Finally his problem faded away, and Nico stepped out from behind the door. "So...what's up?"

Percy opened his mouth to say something, then shut it, then opened it again. "Annabeth just left."

"Okaaay…" Nico paused. He supposed he should have seen her off as well, they were friends after all. But he didn't know. "I wish I had known. I would have said goodbye."

"Well, she left earlier than planned. In a hurry," Percy explained, and from the flushing to his face, Nico could guess it wasn't on good terms. Nico sighed and finally exited his cabin. He sat down on the small porch made of black obsidian.

As Percy squatted to join him, Nico asked, "You two fought again, didn't you?"

"It wasn't a fight," Percy muttered that ran his hand through his dark hair. "I… I just tried to explain it… Tried to say I didn't want her to go…"

"Right." Nico's throat wanted to close up.

"And it just came out wrong." Percy buried his face into his hands. Nico almost wanted to chuckle – the hero of Olympus, the child of prophecy – getting all worked up over such a normal, teenage problem. "She snapped, I was sarcastic… she yelled, I yelled…"

Nico waited for his friend to work through what he needed to say. He wanted to wrap his arms around Percy and hold him, but he wasn't sure if that was a 'guy' thing or not.

"And she said stuff about not being good for each other and that I should go figure out what I really want in a relationship." Percy looked absolutely miserable.

Nico knew the social cue here. He groaned in sympathy, and added, "Sorry Percy." He wanted to continue with something that started like 'maybe she's right' but he settled for "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. Just… you two need a cooling off time."

"Yeah…" Percy trailed off. Nico snorted.

"Oh yeah, that was convincing."

Percy made a weird laugh, and Nico decided one arm was probably appropriate. So he threw it around Percy's shoulders and gave him a half squeeze, half shake. But the movement reminded me of his odor problem and he quickly dropped his arm.

"Tell you what. Let me take a shower and get dressed. We go eat breakfast, say screw it to camp activities and go play dead celebrity," Nico suggested. Percy grinned and agreed. Nico climbed to his feet and moved to go inside, and Percy followed. "I thought you weren't supposed to go in the other gods' cabins," Nico pointed out as Percy flopped on one of the spare beds. Nico was just grateful it wasn't on his – the thought of Percy in his bed was more than he could take.

Percy made a scoffing noise. "We go into each other's cabins all the time for inspection and crap. It's daytime and we're both guys. Why not?"

Nico really wanted to argue, but couldn't find any comment that didn't involve an innuendo or two. So he left it at that and grabbed some clothes from the 'doesn't smell like death' drawer. His shower time he cut short, scrubbing hard and fast with extra soap. He finished in record time and redressed quickly, almost tripping over his faded dark jeans.

Despite how short he made his shower, Percy had drifted off stretched out carelessly on the extra bunk. For a moment, Nico appreciatively drank in the sight. Percy still had a lanky teen's body, muscle faintly developing on his lean frame. But his face was still young, and looked even younger lying there on the dark bedspread.

Even the hero of Olympus needed downtime.

So Nico sat on his own bunk and folded his legs to his chest. He'd wake Percy up in fifteen minutes or so. For now, he could rest, and Nico would watch out for him.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: School sucks. FYI. Thank you to everyone who favorited and commented on this story! It's nice to see support, and it reminds me to write the next chapter. Or I forget._

_Seriously. Goldfish memory.  
_

**Chapter Three**

"Seriously? Bob Hope?" Percy asked in disbelief.

"How do you not know who Bob Hope is?" Nico asked with a scoff in his voice as he leaned on his shovel. "He's a famous comedian! The first and only honorary veteran."

"Famous from like… the fifties. And how do you know that?" Percy demanded.

"He was performing from the twenties til he died a couple years ago. And cause he's dead, it's kind of my job to know!"

"You have more useless informa-"

"Right now, your job is to shovel up your mess," Chiron reminded as he passed by for the second time to make sure they were working. He scuffed at the ground with his hoof. "Nico, we've talked about this. No summoning on camp grounds. And Percy, you shouldn't encourage him." But it was in that teasing, half-meaning it way of scolding. Apparently, cleaning the mess up was punishment enough.

Nico glanced down at the muck at their feet, the remains of Percy's blue soda threatening to permanently dye the soles of his ratty black Converse. They hadn't planned to make a mess quite this big, but they had gotten caught up in their game. For three hours. The other cabins were off doing their thing as giant groups. Everybody at camp had siblings to be with – except Percy and Nico. Their cabins only had one person, and they each had to come up with their own camp activities. In Nico's mind, it made perfect sense for the two of them to hang out together. Perfect sense. Shut up, giggling bubbly feeling in his stomach.

"Okay, so nicking four jugs of soda from the mess hall was a bad idea," Percy grumbled once the half-horse was out of range, dumping another shovel-load of soda and soggy pieces of hamburger into the bucket.

"No, tripping while carrying them was a bad idea," Nico replied. "I thought you were more coordinated than that, Seaweed Brain." Nico mentally flinched at the nickname he had picked up from Annabeth. Reminding Percy of her right now was probably not the best idea. But Percy hadn't even seemed to notice as he lifted his next shovelful up and pulled it back, grinning wickedly. Nico stepped backwards. "Don't. You. Dar-"

Cola, mud, and something that had once been potato salad splattered across Nico's shirt and arm that flew up to block his face. Percy laughed hysterically as Nico let out a strangled cry of disgust. Nico growled at him, dropped his shovel and buried his hands into the mess as Percy doubled over, then received a muck facial. Percy screeched through the mud, making a very interesting bubbling noise that made Nico laugh. Percy dropped his shovel and just lunged for Nico's middle, and they both went down with a noisy squelch of mud.

Nico was laughing too hard to put up a decent fight, but Percy seemed to be having the same problem. For a moment, everything else was forgotten and they were just two boys horse-playing, getting filthy, and having fun.

The mud and wasted food fight lasted only as long as it took for both boys to get completely filthy and Chiron to return on his next round to find them half-heartedly wrestling and laughing too hard to breathe properly.

"What do you have to say for yourselves?" Chiron asked in that tone of trying hard not to laugh himself.

"Percy cheats," Nico mumbled under his breath as he ran a dirty hand through his equally filthy hair to dislodge clumps. Controlling carbonated soda should not count as a son of the seagod power.

Percy shifted from foot to foot. "I think something just dribbled down my butt crack."

Chiron's shoulders shook from trying so hard not to burst out chuckling. "Go get cleaned up," he tried to say in his neutral voice but failed miserably. "Then come back and finish this."

"The fight or the cleanin-" Percy started to ask back and Nico snorted, then gagged from the bit of mud that invaded his nose. Percy just laughed again, and mud flecked onto Chiron's front.

"Come on Nico," Percy gasped out, grabbing Nico's arm and dragging him towards the cabins. Nico stumbled against the older demigod, still laughing. "Been walking long?" Percy teasingly asked, then trapped Nico's head under his arm. Nico yelped and tried to squirm free unsuccessfully.

He tried to just enjoy the moment, he really did. Since Bianca died, Nico hadn't had anyone. He never had friends, trapped in that endless arcade for fifty years or so. Bianca had been all he had, and when she died he lost the only important person in the world. Even when he learned who his father was, he was still alone. The gods didn't exactly get buddy-buddy with their kids, and Hades was pretty stand-offish by himself. Persephone didn't make it any easier to get close to his father. The other demigods wanted little to do with the son of death. So he ran off for weeks at a time to the Underworld, where he was by himself with the dead.

Seriously, this was going to give him a few complexes that would be difficult to pronounce.

But when Percy was around, things were easier. Everyone had to like Percy, because he was the Hero of Olympus. And that same hero liked being around Nico. Only Percy would voluntarily be around him, goof off with him like this. Percy made everything better and more bearable. Nico didn't feel quite so alone.

The argument was so familiar. He only told it to himself every time the feelings inside him rose. The internal argument came up every night when he felt whispers that Percy meant something different he hadn't experienced before, every time when he glanced at the son of Poseidon, every time when he noticed something about Percy he didn't think he was supposed to.

Like how even beneath the stench of mud and food, he could smell the sea that was a essential part of what made Percy.

Nico finally jerked his head free of Percy's grasp thanks to the mud. Percy just laughed and gave a one handed wave as he ran off towards his cabin to use the shower. Nico watched him go, almost counting the muddy steps it took for Percy to reach his cabin porch and let the door slam behind him.

He wasn't even in dark spirits as he turned to his own cabin and entered, despite the black motif. He stepped into the shower fully clothed and just let the mud run off his clothes and body before undressing under the falling water.

His wet shirt had just released it's suction-hold to his hair when he heard the chime of an Iris message. He whirled around to face his father in the Iris beam. Wet and naked. While thinking of Percy.

Well, this was morbidly embarrassing.

**To Be Continued**


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Holy cow, thanks everyone for your reviews! And for all the favorite adds and the watches. That's really awesome! After reading all the new reviews, I decided to finish the next chapter tonight instead of working on my homework._

_This was more fun, anyways._

_I did have more written before the beginning of this posted chapter, but it was really boring. And my English teacher said to edit out the parts people would skip. So I did. Anyway, enjoy!_

**Chapter Four**

"Percy!"

Some nearby campers turned to look at Nico, his fist still raised from pounding on Percy's cabin door. There was no answer, so Nico pounded again.

"If you're looking for Percy…" someone finally hesitantly called, a girl Nico had seen hanging around the Hermes cabin. She seemed to hesitate as Nico looked to her. "He… he went down to the field," her voice dropped off so soft he could hardly hear it. "Something… about some campers…"

Nico jumped off the porch and barely kept himself from running towards the field. As he passed the girl and her friends, they shied away from him. He then realized he had grabbed the wrong clothes and they smelled heavily of sulfur and dirt - death.

Son of Hades, present and accounted for. One of the campers looked at him and as he briskly half-jogged away, he heard the disbelieving whisper, "That's Hades' kid – prince of dead?"

Original. What did they expect? Chains and metal studs and skulls? Nico had enough of skulls, thank you very much. And he found Goths to be extremely overrated – it's hard to go against the man when you're conforming to a stereotype. Besides, Thalia had that area covered. Nico couldn't afford much beyond ratty jeans and shirts anyways. He probably looked more Indie than anything… or just 'Wal-Mart special'.

He saw Percy standing between three campers, Nico recalled the brown haired boy from Apollo's cabin, but the blonde with decorations in her hair he didn't know, and as Nico approached the dark haired girl turned and he saw Athena's grey eyes. Nico's mind immediately jumped to Annabeth again.

He wondered if Percy noticed, but he was busy lecturing the brunette.

"So the new rule is that while holding a weapon, you are not allowed to try anything you saw in a cartoon, movie, or on television," Percy finished to the son of Apollo.

"Kingdom Hearts is a video game," he muttered in reply and Percy light-heartedly smacked the boy upside the head.

"Go check on your brother," Percy told him and the three scurried off. Percy grinned at Nico and rolled his eyes. "Sometimes, being a counselor is fun. I get to point out their stupid mista- what's wrong."

"Nothing," Nico lied. "Just, my dad." Nico's smile fell a bit as he remembered that awkward conversation. He had squawked and slipped in his own shower, which at least helped distract him from thoughts about Percy. Hades had raised an eyebrow at first, but conveniently said about his son's state. He had waited only long enough for Nico to grab his towel and sheepishly wrap it around his waist before instructing him to return to the Underworld.

"He wants me to do some errands for him." Nico felt stupid as he said it. He ran off to the Underworld all the time. Why did he feel the need to tell Percy? Okay, he knew why. He didn't need to think about it and cause more heart-ache.

"Oh. Okay." Percy shrugged as he picked swords up from the grass, one with some suspicious blood on it. "When will you be back?"

"I don't know." Yeah, feeling really stupid now.

"Oh." Percy shouldered the swords. "Well…" He frowned as if struggling to figure out what to say. "You stay in touch, alright? You're not allowed to run off on your own and sulk in dark corners and go all emo on me."

Nico rolled his eyes and scoffed. "No, I'm serious man!" Percy chuckled and adjusted the swords. "You're the only thing that's keeping me sane here!"

"Too many noobs?" Nico teased lightly.

"Honestly. All these new demigods… But they all have to be claimed and trained and know they're not alone. They deserve it."

Nico felt a pang at the tone of Percy's voice – a tone he couldn't identify. They had both been in that position – in a way, they still were.

As another camper came up to Percy, asking a question without any attempt to mask her interruption, Nico thought that it was probably just him in that position now. The girl glanced at Nico as she spoke, then stopped mid-word and looked at him again to stare.

He was getting really tired of this. Percy furrowed his brow and said, "Excuse me, we were talking."

"Ah, Perc. It's alright." Nico nodded to the girl – Aphrodite's daughter, maybe? Too many new campers to keep track of them all anymore. The gods really needed a max capital put on their mortal reproduction. "Go ahead. I'll… see ya. Later." Nico gave a half-hearted wave and shuffled backwards a few steps.

"Nico-" Percy started, but was cut off while the girl re-asked her question. By then Nico had turned his back to the dark-haired boy and headed to his cabin to get his sword and a knapsack.

He tried not to think as he threw clothes into the bag. He tried not to think about Percy specifically, but all his thoughts came back to Percy full-circle. So he just tried not to think at all.

As he opened a portal to his father's kingdom, he grabbed his black bomber jacket from under his bed. The Underworld was cold.

And lonely.

**To Be Continued**


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: Wow, thank you all for the awesome reviews! I'm glad everyone's liking it so far! _PharaohDeli _and _TectonicPlatez _get extra points for their comments on the random reference. And thank you to everyone who said I had good grammar and spelling - I work really hard at it since I suck at it! I'm also glad so many of you like the personality I give Nico. Because of all the reviews, I tried to hurry up with this update. But it's a bit longer, so sorry for the delays.**

**And yes, I'm sorry but this is a slow-building plot (As warned in the preview)! If you want randomly fast mad monkey lovings, please hit 'back' on your browser and pick a different fanfiction... Real life doesn't happen that way. Unless you're a celebrity, in which case I don't envy you. Anyways. On with the story.**

**Chapter Five**

Nico sat on the bank of the River Styx, watching the tide of souls ebb and flow. For some reason, seeing twisted once-human forms in the lapping water was not nearly as poetic as a stream or an ocean. They didn't appear tormented, just very serene. Nico almost wanted to wade in after them, but knew better.

He recalled with startling accuracy the memory of Percy, submerged in the Styx. Nico had convinced him to go in – he thought it was the only way to protect Percy from the fight they both knew was coming. For a moment, a sheer terrifying moment, Nico almost thought he had killed the boy. His racing heart and his screaming mind and the pure relief when Percy surfaced and the strain his voice, _Oh gods, you're hurt!..._ He knew then that the whispers of thoughts he had about Percy were very different that anything he had felt before.

Even when his father tried to hold Percy captive, Nico knew Percy was the child of the prophecy. Just as he knew he could not let Percy die. So he helped make him near invulnerable – and almost killed him.

Nico's heart squeezed at the voice of Percy, explaining afterwards that he had thought of Annabeth. That's how he survived. Nico tried to make him invulnerable… but the mere thought of Annabeth had saved him.

Nico abruptly got up from his seat, flashing to his father's palace in a second. He didn't want to think about Annabeth and Percy, even though there wasn't a glimmer of hope in his crushed heart over their 'break-up'.

He ran his hand along the cold black obsidian of the palace wall as he walked down the corridor. There was no noise – not the outside hum nor the internal vibrations of life. Nico hadn't noticed them until in the face of true silence and loneliness. He even missed Persephone's presence – she brought life to the gardens and often Nico had heard the echoes of her singing. He didn't dare approach her, the son of a mortal his father had cheated with. But he would sometimes sit in a nearby corridor and listen, shutting his eyes and pretending it was his mother's voice. But she wouldn't return for a while yet, summer still stalling its end. Still, her warmth was welcome, even at the distance he forced himself to keep. He had given up on calling up his mother – his father had firmly put an end to that. He would summon his sister often, but even her familiar voice did not scare away the loneliness of being the only mortal in the Underworld.

"Nico."

Nico nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled around to face Hades, a bit sheepish that his dad could still easily scare him. …Despite that he was wearing what looked like a _Phantom of the Opera_ stage costume. "Hello Father."

"Are you finished?"

"Yes sir," Nico replied, trying to keep a straight face as he thought of his father singing 'All I Ask of You'. Really. He did try.

"Nico?" Hades asked, an eyebrow barely raising into a dignified arch. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he squeaked out, then had to clamp his hands across his mouth to hold the laughter in.

"Are you ill?" Hades moved towards him awkwardly, as if unsure what to do. "We have the souls of many post-mortal medical professionals to-"

"I'mmfinm," Nico repeated, muffled. He needed better control of his funny bone. Or to just have the thing removed. Laughter didn't fit the persona of the son of death.

"Then why did you prolong your return by the River?"

Well that killed the guffaws instantly. Nico quickly removed his hands. "No reason," he blurted. "I was just… gazing. At the souls. The water. Taking a breather. Cause, I mean-" Okay, shut up_ now._

"Is something troubling you son?" Hades asked.

Did he have _I have issues_ written across his face? He did, more than the New York Times - but like hell he was going to talk to his father, Lord of the Underworld, about them.

Luckily, his stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly. Hades frowned and looked at his mid-section, as if it had personally insulted him. Oh thank the gods Nico didn't eat much. He would keep his stomach on retainer to interrupt awkward questions.

"I'm hungry," Nico said quickly.

"I gathered. Shall I arrange a meal for you?"

"Er, no." Nico raised a hand. "I was thinking of heading back to Camp." And Percy. Stuff it, brain.

Hades looked upset. Considering that 'upset' usually defined his usual expression, his upset face looked pretty angry. Before, Nico would have stepped back from his father. He had gotten used to the god's habits.

"I dislike your prolonged stays there," Hades stated, rather evenly.

"It's only for the summer." He wished it was longer. But Percy only stayed for the summer, then returned to his mother and step-father and normal life. Camp wasn't worth going with Percy gone – almost as lonely as the Underworld. "I'll be back."

Now Hades did look extremely upset, but something strange Nico couldn't identify crossed his sharp features. "You will return then?" he asked.

"Yeah. Of course." It wasn't like he had school to attend or anything. Not that he couldn't summon a tutor or two, but really, if he wasn't able to have social interactions, why bother making a fake attempt at learning? His knowledge was several decades behind the curve anyways.

His stomach growled again.

"Fine." Hades nodded, then placed a hand on his shoulder. "I shall see you when you return, son."

…Awkward. "Okay." Nico shifted uneasily out from under his father's touch. "…Goodbye."

He never felt comfortable transporting around his father, so he quickly headed out of the palace and through the gate. He flickered past the crowds of dead souls to the entry, stopping there to check on what he considered to be his pet. He only wished he had brought three bones.

But as he appeared amid the lines waiting at the gates, he saw a familiar scarred face under hair that had once been blonde. Inches away and staring at him, almost through him, with glazed eyes. Nico gaped, and in his hesitation, the dead eyes flickered with recognition.

The ghostly hand extended towards him. Nico flinched and flashed away, landing hard on the field outside camp – flooded with the smells of grass and trees and sky and the living. Then he ran to the camp's borders.

_To Be Continued_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

_Author's Note: *toasts marshmallows over flamer* You guys want some?_

_My mates are awesome. They enjoy their story and their very very brief cameo appearance, so I'm glad. And thanks again to all my awesome reviewers who make me feel so guilty for not updating – You guys actually make me write more. Even the flamer, who apparently read all 5 chapters. Good on ya, mate - way to set an example!_

_I apologize though - I tried to write this chapter three times, and each one sucked. This one still sucks, but I'm getting bored and want to move on. So...yeah. I finished this instead of studying for my test tomorrow.  
_

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_

You'd think a guy could get some peace and quiet and personal time in the shower. Really – it was supposed to be private. Time to relax and ignore all the thoughts demanding for attention. Like dead people. Nico shut his eyes tightly and tried not to feel guilt – guilt he didn't really understand where it was coming from. Over a dead person. Most people would say there was really nothing he could do at this point, but he was the son of death. Dead people were his thing. Cole Sear had nothing on him.

Nico had his forehead resting against the cold wall letting the warm water pour over his shoulders, trying not to _think -_ when the door slammed open.

"Nico!"

"Shit!" Nico jerked back from the wall slipping in the pooling water at his feet and crashed down in the middle of the shower and cracked his head hard against the ground. He swore again and blearily opened his eyes to stare up at the pouring water and a smirking Percy Jackson.

"_SHIT_!"

"You're very eloquent today."

"Percy! Get out of here!" And get yourself up off the floor, idiot. Maybe some _clothes…_?

Nico's eyes widened and he shot up embarrassed, just to slip and head-butt the wall. He swore again while Percy fell back laughing. The kind of laugh that made the sudden pain in Nico's head lessen just to hear. Nico suppressed the smile as he clutched his forehead, and splashed water at Percy. Percy didn't even look as the water flicked away from him. "Now that I've provided some Three-Stooge worthy entertainment for you, will you get out?"

Percy got up with a snicker and headed to the door. Before the door shut, he snapped his fingers and the stream of water went icy and jumped over a foot to dump on Nico's head. His squawk didn't cover Percy's burst of laughter.

Nico sputtered and looked at the door, still holding his forehead, before smiling.

He exited the bathroom while pulling a camp shirt over his head. Percy was lounging on the bed, kicking his leg freely while working on a shield strap with a screwdriver.

"Think that could use a little more sonic?" Nico teased as he approached. "Why are you fixing a shield with a screwdriver?"

"Just needed a little bit of jiggery-pokery." Percy flexed the strap, which popped loose immediately. Percy's lip curled for a second and he went to work again.

Nico flopped beside him. "Don't you have something better to do than stalk me in my cabin?"

"Dude you have no idea how insanely bored I've been since you left." Percy chuckled as the screwdriver slipped free again. "The only entertainment around here is that Apollo kid and his friends, drawing keyholes on everything. He's going to cause some damage soon." The screwdriver slipped again, and Percy frowned.

"…or stab himself in the chest." Nico took the screwdriver from Percy and tightened the strap. He tugged on it to make sure it was secure, and the thing didn't budge. Percy stared as he handed the screwdriver back with a bit of a smirk.

"Okay. I have been messing around with this for at least fifteen minutes. You fixed it in about two seconds."

"I'm good with my hands," Nico shrugged. "Always have-" Wait. Was he? His mind blanked, like a question he knew the answer to and would feel stupid later for forgetting.

"Nico, you feeling alrig-" Percy started to ask, but stopped himself mid-sentence. "Scratch that. I know you're not feeling alright. You're never feeling 'alright'."

"Hey," Nico protested as Percy went on.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter!"

"Other than the blood dripping from your eyebrow, yes there is. You run your hand through your hair when you lie."

"I do not." Nico quickly dropped his hand. Blood was smeared on his palm, so he rubbed his sleeve across his forehead.

"You have since you were ten," Percy smirked as he turned the shield over on his lap. "I remember, cause when we first met I wanted to feed you to the wolves."

Nico raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me? _Wolves_?"

"A meat-flavored sack was involved, but yeah." Percy gave a quirky grin. "You were annoying and wouldn't shut up."

Nico stuck his tongue out. "I was ten. I thought being a demi-god was cool." Percy was still grinning and Nico couldn't stand the thought of Percy getting one up on him. "You were annoying when you were twelve – Annabe-" Aw crap. Hello foot, you taste strange this afternoon. Nico needed to learn when to just shut up – this whole 'Annabeth is a taboo topic' thing was hard to remember. And screw social conventions – Nico hadn't gone to school for about seventy years. Things had changed since elementary school in the twenties. So he did the most graceful thing.

He rapidly changed the subject. "You never answered why you were in my room."

"Oh." Percy snapped away from wherever his mind had wandered off to. Nico was glad that someone else got lost in their own brain. "Well, my mom's throwing a party for her and her boyfriend Paul – about their engagement."

Another social cue. "Congratulations to them," Nico said with a grin. "You like the guy, right?"

"He's a ton better than my first step-father," Percy snorted, and looked at his reflection in the shield. "Paul's nice to me. And he's good for mom."

"What happened to the jerk, anyways?"

Percy thought for a moment, and Nico could see him struggling to hold back a wicked grin. "Let's just say… His dead weight is gone."

Nico paused, and the smile on Percy's face made him shake his head. "You know what, I don't want to know."

"Yeah. Well, it's tomorrow. They're picking me up for the day and I was wondering if you wanted to come along if you got back in time."

Nico looked at him for a moment, trying to drown the happy gooey feeling in his gut from being invited somewhere - anywhere. But especially that it was Percy inviting him. It meant more to him than it should, and he grinned. "Will there be blue cake?"

Percy laughed.

_To Be Continued _


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

_Sorry for the false upload a second ago - hit the wrong chapter button. And this is a longer chapter this time - Because we're finally developing some kind of plot!_

_I wrote this instead of paying attention in Chemistry. And English. Whoops. (If anyone asks, this is my homework.) But I'm going to go see The Lightning Thief with my friends tonight – wearing orange camp half-blood shirts! I'm too excited to concentrate – ADHD is at it's worst today._

_PharaohDeli – I like you. You get my random references. You can stay._

_And thanks to Greg at aRedMoon for the spot on the fanfic list! My friend pointed it out to me._

_-------------------  
_

There is no discreet way to smell yourself. Nico had paranoidly scrubbed himself pink and raw in the shower to mask his recent jaunt in the Underworld. He thought he had about torn his hair out at the roots from how much he lathered. He had put on his cleanest, albeit faded, clothes fresh from the wash.

And why did this matter so much? Because a certain green-eyed boy was sitting next to him for the drive. When Percy gave him a weird look and asked if he had a cold Nico forced himself to stop sniffing. He couldn't tell if he still smelled like sulfur, if his paranoia was playing tricks on him, or if the scent was so saturated in his nose he couldn't tell the difference anymore. He hoped it was the second choice – the other two really weren't appealing. He wanted to be a normal kid for one afternoon.

Unfortunately, Percy's soon-to-be new step-father wouldn't have any of it. "So Nico, you haven't told me what Greek god you're the son of," Paul said cheerily as he drove.

Nico peeled his eyes away from the roof of the car where it looked suspiciously like somehow had tried to hammer out dents. "Oh, uh…" he floundered a bit. He didn't want to say it, which in turn made him feel instantly ashamed of himself. Shouldn't he be proud of who his father was? But he wasn't – he didn't want Paul to not welcome him to come anymore.

"Hades," Percy replied for him. "Hades is Nico's dad."

Paul made a sound that seemed like he was genuinely interested and impressed. "One of the big guys! Tell me, does he really have blue flames for hair?"

Nico paused to process that bizarre mental image, and about slid out of his seatbelt trying to hold in the burst of laughter. Percy let it loose, slumping over in his seat and his shoulders shaking. "No," Nico gasped out.

Paul grinned at the two boys in the backseat in the rearview mirror. "I figured not. I bet he's not too thrilled with Disney for that, eh?" Nico started to recognize the streets they were passing through. Epic battles in city centers leave that impression on you, as well as wandering aimlessly for weeks and returning to the same apartment area. He always forced himself to take a different route and avoid that specific street – cause how weird was that? _'I'm not a stalker. By the way, your new rug looks great from the front window.'_ No, he wasn't that creepy yet. He'd confine himself to the Underworld before that.

"You should bring it up around him sometime," Percy suggested between chuckles as he pulled himself back up. When he moved, Nico realized that their legs were touching. Why is it when you like someone, you become super conscious hyper-aware of every little bit of contact they make? Nico pretended to readjust in his seat and pulled away from Percy.

"I really don't wish to _join_ the dead, you know," Nico replied coolly as Paul pulled into a parking structure under the building. He felt a bit better being surrounded and not out in the open. Okay, maybe he was getting that creepy.

They all climbed out of the car, and Nico followed behind Percy as they headed up to an apartment Nico had only seen once. The white noise flooded the stairwell, and several people crowded the hallway around an open apartment door. Even Percy looked surprised.

"You're popular," Nico teased.

"No, I think they're here for Paul and my mom."

"Come on boys," Paul said good-naturedly, and the three headed into the apartment. Paul was immediately seized by some co-workers for congratulations, and Percy somehow got swept up into it as well. Grown-ups punched his shoulder in the buddy-buddy way adults do when they want to get a kid's good side. Nico faded back into the shadows and watched as Paul proudly spoke of his future step-son, ruffling his dark hair. Percy rested his hands in the back pockets of his shorts and stood easily as he joined in the conversation, something about going to summer camp.

"Nico, I'm so glad to see you." Nico smelled the gentle sweetness before he turned to see Percy's mother, her soft hair gathered over one shoulder and even an even softer smile just for him. Now it was easy to see where Percy got his good looks – there was no question that they were mother and son. She didn't hesitate to gather him in a warm, welcoming hug.

Funny, he couldn't smell the Underworld anymore.

"Hello again," Nico said, and it felt like it should be awkward, but it wasn't. Percy's mother just made everything seem natural and easy. When she pulled back, she pressed a paper plate overloaded with blue cake into his hands.

"Percy told me you wanted cake."

"I didn't mean for you to _make_ some-" Nico started, but she just went on.

"Thank you for being a good friend to Percy. He's been lonely without Grover around – and in his letters it seems like you're around to cheer him up during his… difficult time." She glanced to make sure Percy couldn't overhear. "Was their break-up bad?" she asked gently.

So Percy told her. Were sons supposed to be that close to their mothers? He felt vaguely jealous. "Pretty bad," Nico admitted, although he didn't have much to gauge it against.

She made a noise Nico couldn't identify and looked to her son again. "I knew it wouldn't work out with her," she sighed.

"Huh?" Nico asked before Percy was heading over to them and seized his arm.

"This is my best friend from camp – Nico," he introduced loudly and quickly to the group behind him.

"Hey!" Nico hissed under his breath. "I'm eating your mom's cake!"

"I need to waylay some of the interrogations," Percy hissed back as he pushed him towards the group of Paul's friends.

"Is this why you brought me along?! No!"

"Traitor!" Nico and Percy got into a mock struggle over the plate of cake and it wound up down Percy's front then shoved down Nico's neck as the adults laughed, and they both completely missed the smile on the face of Percy's mother.

The 'party' was rather on the boring side to Nico, but Percy was insistent that he stay semi-attached to his side at all times – a buddy buffer against adults. They entertained themselves and ate all the blue junk food Percy's mother provided. Percy even stuffed some in his cargo pockets.

Nico had just gotten Percy to laugh and squirt soda out his nose, much to the amusement or disgust of the grown-ups, when he looked up and saw a very familiar face. Something cracked inside him at that moment as Annabeth cautiously approached and tapped Percy on the shoulder. Percy turned, his laughter drying up as he faced Annabeth.

"Hi Percy," she said, in her voice that plainly said 'elephant? What elephant?' "Hi Nico."

"Hey," Nico barely echoed back. What was she doing here?

Paul was smiling proudly. "I thought Percy would want to see Annabeth, so I contacted the camp and-"Percy's mother slugged his shoulder and hissed something in his ear. His face immediately fell. Oh goody. Nico wasn't the only one who often tasted his toes.

But that didn't explain why Annabeth had accepted the invitation. Nico uneasily took a step back from the two, emanating awkward space as Percy sort of gaped and Annabeth looked determined not to look uncomfortable.

Before Percy could really respond back to her, Nico suddenly winced at the buzzing sensation in his head. Couldn't dead people just shut up for a bit? Percy and Annabeth were both looking at him, Percy asking something with a worried face, but Nico couldn't hear him. He searched for a moment for the source of sudden, unwelcome noise. Nobody had died, thankfully, but something was wrong in the Underworld. The scarred blonde swam back to the surface.

Guilt sucked.

"What about Luke?" Percy asked, snapping Nico back to the present. All eyes were on him. Well crap.

"What?" he asked lamely.

"You said 'Luke'," Annabeth pointed out.

Speaking his thoughts aloud could be a bad habit. "Y-yeah. I did. Um."

Paul, at that moment, apparently decided knocking over a lamp and letting it crash loudly to the floor was a good idea. Attention turned off him as Paul exaggeratedly clutched his foot and hopped around, Percy's mother rushing in to help with the act. Annabeth took the cue and grabbed Nico, hauling him out of the main room and into the only empty room in the apartment – the bathroom. Percy shut the door behind them, the three cramped together around a toilet. Wonderful.

"What about him?" Annabeth demanded, looking somewhere between angry and upset and worried and some other emotions Nico didn't want to try and figure out. Percy's faced matched hers – except his included guilt.

"He's being judged," Nico said weakly. "I saw him, in line – I thought he would take a while to process, but cause of the war, they sped it up –"

They both looked lost, kind of like how Nico felt. This was supposed to be a fun day with Percy. Now it sucked on all angles.

"Something is up over Luke," Nico summed up as best he could. "With his judgment."

Annabeth looked angry. "If something's wrong, we have to help him."

But Luke's dead – he was a little beyond help at that point. Percy nodded his head in agreement with Annabeth, then his face hardened a bit. "We're going to go see what. Only me and Nico. Annabeth, go back to Olympus."

"What?" Annabeth looked completely shocked.

"Go back," Percy repeated. "Tell my mom and Paul we had to duck out for us." He grabbed Nico's arm. "Nico, can you take us there from here?"

"Y-yeah," Nico stammered, wondering what in the hell just went down in that tiny ceramic space. His fingers hit the lightswitch to get the darkness they needed, and the last thing he saw was Annabeth's face crumpling in disbelief.

He couldn't help but feel a smirk of satisfaction as Percy's hands clung to his arm.

_To Be Continued_


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note: Building plot is boring sometimes. And I hate writing battle sequences, so if someone has ideas, please pass them along. I'm open to suggestions. I like the ending of this chapter tho._

_And who saw the movie, show of hands! I actually rather liked it - knowing that they had to cut a lot and rewrite some to adjust for the book to movie translation, and the fact that they didn't know if they could ever make a sequel. Although I'm upset they left out the prophecy... but yeah. Go see it. Support the franchise. I want to buy action figures and have pictures of Sora fighting Percy. Or Percy getting in the Tardis. Cause I was raised and genetically programmed to be a nerd. Check out my deviantart site (Colt-kun) to confirm that. Anyways.  
_

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

"Nico! Nico, wake up!" The familiar voice had a slightly desperate edge as it hissed next to his ear.

Oh hey, look, he actually was asleep. He fought to open his eyes, and for a moment didn't think he had until his eyes adjusted almost instantly to the darkness of the Underworld. Well, now he knew for the record he still couldn't manage transporting another person with him through the shadows. Not strong enough yet.

"Nico?" The warm surface his cheek rested on rumbled.

"I'm awake," Nico mumbled. Or tried to. It sort of came out as 'ammmcke'. He liked the smell – sea salt and sand and sun. Funny, he could actually smell the sun. His warm bed shifted a bit.

"Nico…" was whispered awkwardly. "Come on dude, wake up."

Nico just wanted to snuggle further into what he vaguely realized was a warm body and keep sleeping. The cold crush around them – he inherently knew it as the Underworld - didn't help motivate him otherwise. But something nagged at his brain, something he was supposed to realize –

Like that Percy Jackson was playing the lead role as his body pillow.

Nico woke with a start and nearly catapulted himself off Percy. But Percy clutched Nico in a tight embrace. "Don't move!" he hissed.

No, moving seemed like a _great_ idea at the moment as his lower body started to show signs of betraying him. He tried to jerk back, but Percy just held tighter, burying Nico's head into his chest. Shit – he had to get free _now_-

"Monsters," Percy barely breathed.

Nico stopped struggling instantly as he heard a teasing hiss, "I can smell you, little demigod…"

Nico tried to feel out their current situation, but he was disoriented and it was hard to concentrate. He could barely focus on Percy's face inches away from him, the look of determination he knew Percy got, with the frow-burrow and narrowed eyes. Nico loved that look, especially when joined with the knowing half-smirk…

Okay, seriously body, _not_ the time. Screw being a teenager – this hormone crap was driving him crazy.

Percy was saying something, and it took Nico a moment to realize he had mouthed "Your head". Nico quested a hand up to where his hair felt funny –

And barely muffled the cry of pain, but wasn't able to completely stop the leg jerk that caused a sneaker scuff. The next half a second was a blur to Nico's already fuzzy senses, in which he heard the monster whirl around and he knew he had given them away, and Percy quickly shuffled Nico off his chest and uncapped Riptide.

Oh hell no. Nico wasn't about to let himself play the damsel in distress, concussion inducing head wound or not. He got unsteadily to his feet, head screaming at him that this was a bad idea, his sword appearing in his hand.

After that, his body went on automatic. Training in the underworld at least gave him one advantage – dark terrain was nothing. He could sense it around him and react. Besides, his sight was so blurred he wasn't even sure what they were fighting. He could smell where Percy was, and was able to adjust without either having to say a word.

It was a little too perfect in his opinion when the monster went down in less than two minutes, Nico landing in a pile of dust. Of course, the landing wasn't perfect. Foe down, battle sense off, body dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Oh good – he had monster dust in his mouth. That was disgusting.

"Nico!" Percy pulled him out of the dust pile and practically into his lap. "What were you doing – you should have stayed put!"

For some reason, that just pissed Nico off. He wasn't sure why when he groggily retorted, " 'M not a little kid anymore, Perc." Gods, his head hurt. "Don't have t' protect me."

"Oh yeah, because saying that completely slurred is so convincing." Nico could almost hear the eyeroll. "You cracked your head – twice. When we like… fell out of a shadow or something."

Okay, that he felt dumb about. "S'rry." He tried to extend a feel to where they could be in the Underworld, because they obviously weren't where he had been aiming for. But the head injury had scrambled his demigod GPS. Thinking hurt, and he put his hands to his head. Percy tightened his hold around Nico, and it would have felt nice if Nico didn't had a headache rivaling an earthquake.

"Don't move," Percy ordered.

Nico frowned. He wanted to obey – any excuse to stay in Percy's arms enveloped in the smell of the ocean was welcome. All he wanted was to sleep there for a bit. But he could still feel Luke's matter pressing at his aching skull, and knew Percy wouldn't like putting that off. "Luke…" was all he could make out, and tried to stand up. Percy wouldn't let go. Nico was confused. Wasn't Percy here to help his dead friend turned-enemy turned-friend-again?

"You're more important than Luke," Percy snapped, and Nico felt his chest clutch at that, until Percy went on to add, "Cause, I mean, you're still alive. He's not. Not quite such a pressing matter." Stupid butterflies – getting all worked up for nothing. Nico wanted to swallow battery acid to kill them all.

"Judgment on his soul is more important than a head bump?" And he managed to speak semi-coherently this time. Go him. He felt Percy stiffen, and knew he was debating.

"Okay." Percy finally conceded, shifting Nico off his lap. Nico almost kicked himself at the loss of contact as he attempted to stand up. But Percy caught his arm, and moved him to his back. "But you're resting – and only acting as navigator cause I hate trying to find my way through your dad's lair."

"O-okay," Nico agreed uncertainly as Percy easily stood and lifted him. Nico clutched his arms around Percy's shoulders for balance, then relaxed. "We have to get to the gates… they're not super far. Follow the left tunnel for a while," he explained, feeling the directions through the pain-haze in his head.

Percy shifted awkwardly a few times, adjusting Nico legs around his waist and the small of his back. "G-Geez Nico, you weigh nothing. Eat something, would you?" Nico had no retort to that, only rested his head on Percy's shoulder and breathed in the ocean. Gods, he loved this smell. He loved it because it represented all that Percy was, and the few moments he was close to him like this was pure bliss.

_To Be Continued_


	9. and now a word from our sponsor

_Colt is suffering from 3 things - evil teachers, computer viruses, and massive writer's block.  
_

_So the next chapter of Break Myself is stuck in progress, and to help get the wheels turning I decided to write a short snippet, canon to Break Myself. It actually did help so expect the next real chapter sometime this weekend. This snippet takes place before Break Myself, and inspired by a discussion between my friend and I about the whole being a child of Hades… if you don't like it, don't read it. But it helped me work out some thoughts I had been kicking around._

_And because so many people requested more of it… awkward parenting from Hades!  
_

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He could see the locks of hair blending into the black obsidian floor, moving only as the boy sleepily nodded along to jazz music playing softly from a jury-rigged stereo running off a car battery. Nico lay on the floor with his feet tossed carelessly up on his bed, a book propped on his stomach and between his legs. He had been intently reading for a while, often having to struggle over words mixed about by his inherent dyslexia and sound it out loud. Next to him lay a Sparknotes booklet, cast aside and only retrieved when a difficult section had to be explained.

Hades listened from the cracked doorway as Nico stumbled his way through what sounded like _Hamlet_. He almost wanted to go and seek out the soul of Shakespeare himself to explain the play to his son, but some sense of pride kept him from doing so. This was his son – Hades' son! – trying to teach himself classic literature with no reason to, other than what Nico required of himself despite his obvious learning handicaps. Hades felt the urge to go laugh in his brothers' faces – his son!

"You cannot sir, take from me… any…anything that I would more willingly part withal…ex…except my life. Except my life. Except my life."

So he listened silently to his son's voice, a lone sound in the hallway of the dead, cushioned by soft jazz. It was the first voice of any of his mortal children he heard in the Underworld. Hades reflected on his few mortal children throughout the ages – all of them merely shadow memories of boys and girls restricted to that ridiculous camp and dictated to hate him until their inevitable, young deaths. For many years, Hades assumed that the Fates had decided that the Lord of the Dead could not having a living child as yet another cruel irony cast upon him and his lot. He never had known any of his other children, so there was never a chance to be proud of them.

But Nico was different. He had more than defied the odds played out against his brothers and sisters that even his full sister had been unable to escape. And he had done more, taken part in the great half-blood war and helped turn the tide that changed many things. Hades chose to ignore his son's attachment with his sea-salted nephew because of that.

He certainly didn't like that it seemed Nico was only in the Underworld because Percy wasn't at Camp Half-Blood and there was no where else for him to go. Constantly waiting for a place where he could be accepted. How could he possibly make his mortal, living son feel welcome among the dead?

Maybe there was a reason he had never known his children before.

Hades heard the slight thump as the book fell over, and came out from his thoughts to look in the boy's room. Nico had fallen asleep, his hand twitching next to his pale face in his sleep.

Hades smiled at the sight of his son in his home – a thought that he cherished. Then he frowned. Nico was going to catch cold lying on the stone floor like that, and Hades wasn't sure how to handle mortal illnesses. So he opened the door and quietly moved to the boy. For a moment he hesitated, before carefully sliding a hand under Nico's shoulders and beneath his knees. He could barely feel the boy's weight as he stirred in his arms, but he could sense the mortal warmth he radiated.

Hades carefully laid Nico on his bed, musing on how Nico looked like his late mortal lover, with a strange mixture of himself. His son – didn't mortals say something like 'pride and joy'? Maybe he understood that now. He felt the urge to stroke the boy's dark hair, but stayed his hand and instead turned his attention to the Shakespeare volume splayed on the floor.

As he raised the book to glance at the opened pages, Nico rolled on his side and mumbled, "Percy…"

Hades cast a glance at his sleeping son, now facing him and smiling as he dreamt. He looked down at the book in his hands, closed it, and set it beside the boy as he spoke softly, barely heard above the jazz.

"Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar…

But never doubt I love."


	10. Chapter 9

_"…And so Voldemort sent the hobbits to Narnia to find Zeus' Masterbolt to fight the Cullens." THE END. - Best one-sentence fanfic ever._

_Sorry for the huge delay in updates everyone… school is cruel. And I had to finish my Ven (kingdom hearts) and Squall (ff8) costumes for the upcoming anime con. (you can see pictures on my deviantart site username Colt-kun.) Also need to finish Zack and Crisis Core Cloud, but blah. I finally read the new reviews and felt completely guilty over not updating, so I focused on that. The comments people leave make me feel bad about not updating more, I apologize._

_Some of the information about the Underworld I used in this chapter I had to look up. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. I shall do my best to blame my inaccuracies on my sources._

**Chapter Nine**

Okay, Percy Jackson just plain sucked at navigating in the dark. Relaxing against the deceptively small but strong shoulders had seemed like a good idea, until after the seventh footslip on the uneven, rocky terrain of the Underworld. Nico clenched his arms tighter around Percy's neck as they narrowly avoided falling once again and Percy righted himself. All without releasing his near death-grip on Nico's legs.

"Percy, just put me down," Nico almost pleaded for the fifth time. His head was throbbing and an annoying ringing had joined in, but he was pretty certain that walking on his own feet wouldn't cause as many mild heart-attacks as this piggy-back ride from Percy, as nice as it felt to be so close.

"_No_," Percy replied, out of sheer stubbornness now. "Why, are you scared I'll drop you?"

Not really, Nico thought. He trusted Percy that much, but he wasn't sure he trusted him enough to not cause them both to fall. "No."

"You're shivering," Percy pointed out. The trembling took Nico by surprise when he realized that it actually was coming from him.

"It's cold." He offered as a way of explanation. And it was – Nico was used to his bomber jacket – but not quite that cold. Percy wasn't shivering. Actually, he was radiating heat that Nico was grateful to cling to. It was the warmest he ever felt in the Underworld. But-

Percy stumbled yet again. It rocked the headache in Nico's skull on it's side.

"Just put me down!" he yelped over the pain.

"Aren't we almost there?"

Nico grudgingly accepted his evasion and felt about for a minute. He could sense the gates because of the slight emotional turmoil it caused in the otherwise very still Underworld. "Yeah, if we get to the gates we can get to my dad's place quick to talk to him." They were just ahead of the boys – one more turn out of this tunnel and they would see them off across the fields. Hopefully Percy could navigate a field better than he could a dark tunnel.

And he did. Nico gratefully rested his aching head on Percy's shoulder. He felt completely nauseous now, in addition to the horrid headache. Nico was willing to accept some ambrosia or a Tylenol. Whichever was offered first. Whoever invented aspirin was a god.

"Hermes, I think," Percy said out of the blue.

"What?" Nico asked as he opened his eyes again to look at Percy's hairline.

"Aspirin. I'm pretty sure that's under Hermes' domain, the whole medical thing."

Hey, mouth-brake. Why don't you employ before the thought reaches the tongue? Life would be a lot easier for Nico.

The rest of their trip was made in relative quiet, aside from the bass drum playing in Nico's head. He thought Percy slipped a few more times and opened his eyes to accuse the boy of being a complete klutz, but realized they were still moving normally. Equilibrium was out the window.

So when they reached the gates and Percy finally set Nico down, Nico lurched and almost greeted the ground face-first. Percy caught Nico's his waist and steadied him against his side. "Shit Nico, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Nico lied. "Legs are just asleep." He didn't even have to concentrate to find where council was being held over Luke's judgment, the noise level from the arguing dead and the Fates was enough. Some of the gate guardians had joined in as well, and Nico realized he was never really sure what their job was in the first place.

As the two living demigods approached, everyone stopped their arguing to look at them. Life radiated like a warm sunbeam in the dead of winter in the Underworld, and some of the dead were basking in it. Which kind of creeped Nico out to think about. Luke wasn't around, and Nico realized that the argument was for a judgment to be over-turned.

"Luke's in Tartarus," he hissed to Percy under his breath.

"What?" Percy's eyes widened.

"Tartarus! You know, the big damn hole where really bad people go?"

"He doesn't belong there!" Percy didn't bother keeping his voice low, adding to the attention they were already attracting. But that yell made one figure turn around and Nico was surprised to see his father at a lowly mortal's judging.

"Nico," Hades said, his surprise almost perfectly hidden, but his eyes betrayed him as he scanned Nico head to toe as if to make sure it was really his son he was seeing. "What are you doing back here?" Then he looked at Percy. "And why did you bring… company?" Nico wondered what word he was going to use first.

"Nice to see you too, Uncle," Percy said with barely masked sarcasm. Nico tried to give him a warning glance, but Percy charged on. "Nico brought me to so we could make sure Luke wound up where he deserved." Nico's heart squeezed as he silently admired Percy's courage in the back of his mind. But now was really not the time as the argument started again in full fevor, as dead demigods from the battle gained enough life to put their voices against the guardians and the Fates for both liberation and condemnation and Nico's head _hurt_-

"_Silence_!" Hades didn't need to yell for his voice to boom over all of theirs. It rattled right down Nico's spine in the literally dead quiet after it. Which Percy broke.

"Luke's a hero!" Percy yelled. "He doesn't deserve to go to Tartarus!"

"He tried to bring down the gods," Hades started, and Percy cut him off.

"Can you really blame him, tho? With how awful the demigods were being treated?" Sarcasm was probably not the best route to go with this argument, but Nico wasn't sure how to tell Percy that. So he shoved subtlety aside and grabbed Percy's sleeve to pull the angry son of Poseidon behind him. Then he looked to his father.

"Dad, Luke did do wrong," he said in a neutral tone. "But he sacrificed himself to end the whole mess he started and saved everyone." His head hurt horribly, and trying to form a cohesive argument without changing his tone was hard. "Doesn't that at least cancel out the wrong he did, if not more than make up for it?"

Hades' eyes focused only on his son, and Nico felt uncomfortable under his gaze for so long in front of others. Then Hades shut his eyes and slightly nodded in a way Nico could only describe as sagely.

"We shall review the demigod, Luke's, case more carefully. To see if he should be granted reincarnation or continue to the fields, his two options."

Surprise and relief hit Nico at the same time, as he turned to look at Percy to see the huge smile across his face. The smile meant more to Nico than Luke's near-save, which he knew he should feel bad about that priority. But he didn't really care at the moment, his head hurt too much to care as Percy's face narrowed and the smile disappeared. "Nico!"

Then Nico couldn't see Percy anymore.

_To Be Continued_


	11. Chapter 10

_Question that's been asked a couple times: is there going to be a lemon in this fic?_

_Answer: …I don't know. I have a few problems with that. First - My orientation is asexual – if you don't know what that is: it's when a person has little or no sexual drive. Google it. So me writing a lemon seems… weird. Second – it depends on how long the fic is going to go. I really don't like it when characters are written to have just started their relationship and they have a go right after admitting their feelings. Real life tends to be much, much more awkward. Especially for two guys. So… reader feedback on length I suppose? I do have enough ideas for this fic to make it last a while. :P But I'm not that evil. ...well yes I am. But that's not the point.  
_

_And just to promote the Percy/Nico love by other people… on deviantart the artist Akosynne did a cute fanart called 'of angels' of the boys that made me really want to work on this fic more. So go fan over it and leave a comment for Akosynne, cause creative people live off of comments since we don't get money for what we do. :P_

**Chapter 10**

Waking up: not pleasant. Especially when the darkness in his head was comfortable to stay in. For once, Nico's dreams didn't involve a certain dark-haired son of Poseidon or any weird prophetic crap. It was just a quiet, cozy darkness like snuggling under warm covers in the cool of winter while somebody was softly singing somewhere a gentle tune. _Sometimes it's easy to forget the times we weep… The moment makes us weak, and all the shame I see…_

It was somebody touching his forehead, stroking his hair that made him start to realize that he was dreaming. _Memories exist for all the precious days my heart still wants to keep somewhere deep inside of me…_

He wanted to stay asleep, but more and more he could feel the bed he was in, and knew the cold outside the blanket was the Underworld.

_A lullaby for you…_

Nico opened his eyes as the dream faded away in the corners of his mind. He recognized the ceiling in his bedroom after a moment's hesitation, and the weird burn of ambrosia in his throat just after that.

Movement at his side made him realize Percy was sitting beside his bed, as the green-eyed boy lifted his head off his arms resting on the edge of covers. "Nico?" he asked hesitantly.

Nico moved to sit up, and Percy's hands were immediately on his shoulders forcing him back down. "Dude, careful!"

"Wha…"

"Happened? Well, let's avoid the girly term 'fainted', okay?" Percy gave a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. Nico groaned and lifted a hand to push through his hair as he realized he had, in fact, passed out. "Why didn't you tell me how bad you were hurt?" Percy demanded

"I wasn't hurt that bad," Nico retorted as he made a personal inventory. His head ached very very dully, but it was a ray of sunshine compared to the monster migraine from before.

"Nico, you were bleeding in your _brain_. I thought your dad was going to give birth to a litter of _kittens_ when the doctor told him."

"It was just a bump on the head. I got worse injuries in the war," Nico grumbled and finally fought his way to sitting up and put his feet over the edge of the bed.

"Nico!" Percy exasperated.

"And 'doctor'? Doctor Who?" Nico asked, trying to move on. He felt stupidly weak for passing out form a head injury. Weren't demigods powerful heroes who could take a hit and keep going? And he got taken down by a bump to the head?

"Yeah, your dad summoned up a ton of medical people. It was kinda epic, really."

"Where's my father now?" Nico found his sneakers tucked under the bed and pulled them on. Walking barefoot through the Underworld was probably the quickest way to catch a cold.

Percy released a frustrated noise somewhere between a growl and a heave of exasperation. Nico looked up, and the next second found himself flipped back on the bed and pinned. "Why are you acting so damn casual about this?" Percy demanded, his hands digging into Nico's thin wrists. All intelligent responses went out the window as Nico's brain short-circuited for a moment. Then it kicked into overdrive.

"G-Get off me!"

"Not until you stop acting like a bad injury was nothing!"

"It was nothing! I hit my head - I've had worse!"

"You have to tell me when you're hurt, you idiot!"

"Why are _you _getting so worked up over nothing?!"

That shout seemed to work as Percy's face twisted into an unreadable expression. "You have to tell me, or else I don't know," Percy finally said in an eerily calm voice, almost a whisper like it was a secret. "I…I don't get hurt like you do. I forget what it was like."

Nico stared up at Percy as the boy tried to formulate words around what he was thinking. He took in the sun-kissed skin that set off the green of Percy's eyes, the black strands lightened from the summer, and the streak of grey that was usually hidden with careful combing. Gods, Percy was beautiful.

"Nico…" Percy started, then hesitated, before carefully continuing, "From now on, promise me you'll tell me when you're in pain. Even if it's just a little. I can't get hurt, but you can. And… and I need to know." In Percy's eyes laid bare turmoil – of someone doing all he could to protect his friends and not being sure of himself about it.

"Okay," Nico said weakly, and shifted uncomfortably under Percy's gaze.

"_Promise _me," Percy ordered.

"I-…I promise."

Nico was struggling to figure out what to say, when he felt the surge of energy. In the moment before Hades appeared in the room with them, Percy whispered the thought that screamed in Nico's head.

"Oh _shit_."

**To Be Continued**


	12. Chapter 11

_First off - a slight pet peeve: why is it that whenever someone writes a girl/girl story, everyone assumes the writer is a guy, and when someone writes a guy/guy story, they assume it's a girl? It's annoying._

_But guys, really, thanks to everyone for all the reviews, favorites, and alerts! That's a lot O.o For those of you who have wondered: I do not have a regular update schedule. I write what I can when I can. Because of all the reviews I have been trying to get at least a chapter up each week but that makes them be fairly short. But that may change as school is getting really hectic and I've been working on two other fanfictions as well (A Kingdom Hearts one and a Kingdom Hearts/Doctor Who crossover)  
So I'd like to get some feedback from people - I have a couple of different ideas I can use. Would you all prefer if I just stuck with one idea and finished the story, or used the story ideas as arcs? And would you prefer longer chapter and much slower updates... or continue with the try once a week update with what I have?_

_And if anyone is interested in the music for Break Myself..._

_Break Myself – Something Corporate__  
The Story of a Boy – Between the Trees  
__Scream, Scream, Scream – Ludo__  
Be My Escape - Relient K  
__Everything Changes – Staind__  
A Lullaby For You – The World Ends With You Soundtrack  
Don't Jump – Tokio Hotel  
Until The Day I Die – Story of the Year  
This is Home – Switchfoot  
Me Against the World - _

_There's more too, but those are the main ones for now. If you have any suggestions of songs that you're reminded of, let me know! I'm always looking for inspiration. It helps me write faster._

_PharaohDeli - If you have a Disney obsession and anime, we may have to investigate a doppleganger theory.  
Mission to Marzipan - you totally made me laugh, mate. Henry James or Henry James Therou? either way, chuck the book out the window and read something else.  
Paraxenos - the chapters are rather short, but that's because my ADHD causes my attention to totally wander even while writing. So I can only really do concentrated bursts. . I wish I had the time and attention span to make them longer.  
_

_Anyways, on to the chapter mates.  
_

**Chapter 11**

If he wasn't so pissed and scared at the same time, Nico would actually consider this whole scene absolutely hilarious and be sprawled out on the black marble floor laughing his lungs out. As it was, he skidded across that polished floor struggling for traction, hollering despite his sore throat from ambrosia being forced down it, dodging the massive pillars in the labyrinth castle, and struggling to keep up after his father, who was currently trying to kill Percy.

"Perseus Jackson you will regret the day you ever met my son!"

"Dude, Uncle, chill!"

"Dad! Sto-Dad! _No fireballs_!"

Nico rounded one pillar and nearly collided with Percy, bracing himself against Percy's heaving chest. "Aside from the fact he's trying to kill me, this is kinda fun," Percy said with a breathless grin.

"Are you _insane_?!" Nico demanded.

"Slightly."

"PERSEUS!"

Percy grabbed Nico's wrist and ran, yanking him along after. "What exactly is your plan here?"

"Making it up as I go!"

Percy laughed, turning back to look at Nico just as Hades materialized in front of them. Both boys collided with Hades' gut and bounced off, clattering to the marble as a tangle of legs and arms. Percy was still laughing and hearing it made some chuckles bubble out of Nico until he looked up at his father. Hades looked about one shade of 'pissed' away from going to his complete god form and disintegrating them where they were sprawled, Nico half on top of Percy.

"Get. Out. Nephew." Hades ordered in a steely voice that lesser beings would crumble under.

"Okay, okay." Percy shifted to move, and Nico quickly swung his legs off him. As Percy got up, he offered his hand to help Nico up. "We better head back to camp, Nico."

Hades smoldered and clasped Nico's shoulder, pulling the boy back towards him. "I would prefer if Nico stayed here."

Nico glared up at his father. "Dad!"

Percy looked confused and slightly annoyed. "Why? If you have another mission for him can't it wait?"

"I would prefer that my son stays in my realm where he is protected." Hades' fingers tightening in Nico's shoulder joint hurt.

"Dad!" NIco shifted uncomfortably but Hades didn't release.

Percy's eyes narrowed. "Why? Cause it did such wonders for your personality?" he asked sarcastically.

"Leave. Now."

Nico got pissed with being talked about and ignored, and jerked free from his father's hold. "Dad! I'll only be gone another week or so!" Nico's shoulder throbbed and he clutched at it.

"Shit, Nico!" Percy reached for him and carefully peeled his fingers away and pulled aside a charred black T-shirt shoulder. Nico looked in surprised at the burn marks starkly standing out against his pale skin. Percy hissed at the sight. "He hurt you," Percy said icily.

"It was an accident," Nico replied uneasily, feeling uncomfortable with Percy's face only inches from his as he inspected the younger boy's burns. Percy raised his gaze to match Nico's, and just held for a second.

Then he disappeared in a fog of black. Nico's heart skipped as he felt Percy's touch linger for a moment after he disappeared, before he instantly reached out to sense Percy but couldn't feel him anywhere in the Underworld. "Dad!" Nico snapped.

"I sent him back to that wretched camp." Hades voice sounded like stone, absent of anger or even his usual strength. "He is unharmed. But unwelcomed here."

"He's my friend! He's my _only_ friend!"

Hades didn't reply. He didn't even look at Nico. Nico steamed as he figured his father wasn't going to acknowledge him with a response. "Fine. Whatever. You can keep yourself cooped up here. I'm going back to camp." He turned away to leave.

"Nico, you are confined to the Underworld."

Nico stopped dead at his father's voice. "Wha-"

"And to assure you don't leave, your abilities will be capped."

As he spoke, pins and needles shot through Nico's limbs like he had slept in every position wrong and he collapsed to the floor on his knees. His senses were suddenly dulled, and there was no background echo in his head of the souls he could sense or the Underworld's usual white noise of silence. He hadn't even acknowledged it as something outside the normal mind, a constant movement in his mind he had throughout all his memories. Nico felt the keen pain of it's loss now – like a misplaced comforting blanket. For a pure moment there was nothing except his own thoughts, the blood pounding through his temples, and his father's footsteps on the marble as he walked away leaving Nico miserably alone, more alone that he had ever felt in his entirely too long life.

**To Be Continued**


	13. Chapter 12

_Over 10,000 hits and 100 reviews... wow. Thanks mates - that is brilliant! ...So how about a chance at a reward? The person to get the 136th review gets a short snippet of Percy Jackson to their request? It can be canon to Break Myself (Including a hypothetical post-Break Myself or pre-) or the books from any character's point of view. I will put one limit on it: the request MUST remain below NC-17. I don't write prOn. But I can imply it if you want :P Why 136th? cause 150 is too far off, and I like multiples of 6. Good luck.  
_

_My friends saw How to Train Your Dragon this week, and told me I had to see it because I was Hiccup. So we went and saw it together. And yup, right down to the shaggy brownish hair and twig-arms. Then they said my friend K8 was Astrid, etc etc. So this year we want to do a huge group set of costumes from How to Train Your Dragon... AND Percy Jackson. We have Camp Half Blood shirts already :P And I got cast as Percy.  
_

_**Snowy Leopardess **- I'm glad I could make a sick day better cause they already suck enough. Feel better!__  
**halleberry1995 -** I thought my comment at the beginning of the last chapter made my gender obvious... and I don't know what orkut is but my AIM is PanInScarlet and my Deviantart is Colt-kun.  
**9 tailed trickster** - yeah, people stereotype based on their fandom. It's weird. When I've cosplayed as characters like Sora from Kingdom Hearts or Neku from World Ends With You, I've had girls ask me if I would 'yaoi' with other cosplayers so they could take pictures. It's a bit creepy.__  
**sakura-hime17** - I don't think I'll make the story actually M. I might imply it. I don't know yet. Depends on reader feedback I suppose.__  
**ed-nunez -** I started looking up some of those songs and they're brilliant.  
**pharaohdeli **- the doppleganger theory has merit and thanks for the watch on Deviantart mate!_

_Anyways. On to the chapter. It isn't my favorite, but I think it had to happen. Character development and all that. ...I'm going to go watch the Sarah Jane Chronicles with the Doctor's guest appearance._

**Chapter 12**

Nico hissed as the cold water from the fountain splashed onto his burn, running down his skin to soak his shirt and spraying up into his face and hair. He pulled back from the water and craned his neck to see the edges of a stark red mark in the perfect shape of fingers. It was tender to the touch as he inspected, carefully trying to peel away some of the burned shirt and dead skin without hurting himself further.

His muffled cry echoed in the marble hall, nearly surprising himself as the whimper called softly back to him. He looked out at the vast, empty hall with dark shadows threatening to engulf the pillars and the small boy sitting on the edge of the fountain.

Sheer emptiness.

Okay, this was enough to send somebody into suicidal depression. Nico would have said it aloud, but the lone sound of his own voice would be insult to injury. So he sat on the edge of the fountain, holding his aching shoulder and feeling incredibly small. He just wanted to curl in on himself and hide from the emptiness crushing in around him.

He hated this. He felt cold and miserable and just drained. He missed Percy, like the earth misses the sun beneath winter's blanket. Nico wondered if this was how Persephone's mother felt when Persephone was here in the Underworld, a prisoner to his father. His father, who was keeping him here too, and then abandoning him to his own loneliness.

Nico wanted to be with Percy. Percy, who made the empty spot inside him smaller and made him feel better. Kind of like how a mom must make everything feel better. Wait, was he comparing Percy to his _mother_? Okay, ugh, that was a correlation he did not want to establish. So he tried not to think about either of them. But when you're trying hard not to think about something, your thoughts surround it. Nico was hurt and lonely and had nothing to occupy his thoughts except the memories of the short life he had outside of the hotel. Which all involved Percy and longing for his mother.

Dammit.

Nico debated between finding something he could blast and breaking down and crying. He tried to concentrate on a pillar with enough force to shatter it into dust, but he couldn't even stir the air. Okay. Breaking down and crying seemed more likely, as much as Nico didn't want to. He was still fighting the tears when the out-of-place cherry chime of an Iris message echoing in the gloom came from behind him.

Nico turned to see Percy's face, barely visible in the tiny spray caused by the fountain. "Ni-" Percy's voice faded out with the inconsistent spray. Nico plunged his hands into the water to let the water splash more and make the spray bigger.

"-ico! There y- are!"

Percy's face, the fact that he sent an Iris message to the Underworld, meaning he was thinking of Nico, made Nico feel instantly brighter. "Hey Percy, you alright? Dad sent you back to camp and not some weird place right?"

"Yeah. I'm fi- A- you okay?" The inconsistent spray was breaking Percy up like bad cell phone reception.

Nico swallowed the lonely feelings from before. "Yeah," he lied. There was no reason to tell Percy about being… grounded.

Percy's features were hard to make out through the vague mist, but Nico recognized the frown furrow in his face. "Nico? Wh- swrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine," Nico insisted.

"And her- I thought he wa- dyi- or som-ing," came the familiar female voice Nico didn't expect to hear. Annabeth was nothing more than a ghost through the mist, but her self-assured tone was impossible to mistake. "It's bee- Nico this –nd N- that."

"Hey Annabeth," Nico made out over the knife-wrenched pain in his gut at seeing the two of them together. "What are you doing back at camp?"

"Af-r you guys ditc-d me, I was wor-ed. Had to che- up on y- two."

Nico saw Percy turn to her through the vague mist as she continued. "I fou- Sea – Brain here frea-ng out –ver you mis-ng."

Percy turned back, but was barely visible now. "Nico, I just… I wan-d to make sur- -u're okay."

"I said I'm fine." Nico tried to sound as reassuring as possible. But his hands trembled as he tried to suppress the emotions rampaging through him. He did still consider Annabeth a friend, but seeing her with Percy hurt. It felt like a slap in the face to what he couldn't be to Percy. "I have to go."

"Nico – Nico!"

Nico dropped the frigid water and wiped his hands off on his black jeans as the last trace of Percy's face slipped away from the bare mist rising above the fountain. Nico stared at where the dark haired boy's image had been a moment before as the dark feelings flooded like a crashing wave back into his thin body.

"Nico," his father's cool voice flowed over him, caught up in the wave, but didn't echo. Nico didn't turn to face the one who was the cause of all this inner turmoil. "Dinner will be served soon."

"No thank you," Nico ground out through gritted teeth.

"Nico."

"No. _thank. you_. I'm not hungry." Nico barely kept himself from yelling it before he ran off down the dark halls to his room. He slammed the door and braced himself against the other side, for a moment feeling small and foolish. Trying to brace the door shut against his father would be an incredibly immature, and a rather futile action. But he couldn't help himself as his back slid down the door and he sat on the floor, feeling hurt and miserable.

The door barely vibrated with an awkward knock, as if the knocker was unused to the action. "Son."

Slightly impressed that his father wouldn't simply materialize in his bedroom, Nico snapped back, "Go away."

"You're acting like a child."

Nico couldn't find a good retort to that, because he agreed. He was hurting and angry at his father and Annabeth and even Percy - but mostly at himself for being angry with everyone like a moody teenager that wasn't getting his way. So he just hit his fist against the door in reply, then curled his legs to his chest his buried his face in his knees.

He just wanted everything to go away. He was lovesick over the one person in the world who made him feel like he was worth something. And that person had somebody else who was also his friend – sort of – and he wanted them to be happy. He felt horrible with himself for not being mature enough to just accept and move on cause Percy would never look at him that way and –

Nico jerked himself out of his thoughts and tried not to scream out loud. He felt so miserably alone – he wanted someone to just listen to him as he tried to sort out his own feelings and talk through the pain he felt. He wanted someone who would tell him what he needed to hear. He couldn't talk to Percy because it was about Percy. Bianca was out of the question, because she had already expressed her apathetic attitude towards mortal problems. His father wasn't even a passing thought – the man who trapped him here away from Percy and forbid him from summoning his mother.

A flicker of anger raised at that thought as Nico stewed deeper on those thoughts.

Okay, fine. So he couldn't leave the Underworld. That didn't mean he couldn't leave his father's stupid fortress. And he couldn't summon his mother. That didn't mean he couldn't go look for her.

Nico got up off the floor as his mind raced, grateful for something to think about other than how he felt. Feelings were easier to ignore if otherwise occupied with plans.

**To Be Continued**


	14. Chapter 13

_Avikar got the 136th review, so the next update belongs to their fandom. And it's a good one. So... I decided to update with this chapter as soon as I finished it so I could post that snippet next. Which goes perfectly with this chapter, awesomely enough. Wasn't even planned, but works. And I like it. Unfortunately, this chapter is short and is rather boring. . That's why it's updated so soon after the last one. Don'thurtme.  
_

_So I've decided to do another snippet writing for a certain review number, but I'm not telling it this time cause I think it's more fair that way and I don't feel like I'm making people leave reviews for only a reward. I'll just let the reviewer know when they get it - same rules as before apply._

_**Can't Wait For New Stuff** - I like the new doctor, actually. His jawline is very pronounced. But I like him.  
_

_**Raining Ink** - okay, you get the award for the most reviews in the shortest amount of time. And yeah... Percy's an idiot._

_**PharaohDehli** - NO PREDICTING MY PLOTLESS PLOT BUNNIES._

_**9 tailed trickster **- Nico does need some hugs. But it seems only Percy gets in and out of the Underworld these days with a day pass._

_**ed-nunez** - Nico was my favorite character instantly from that scene. Like a lost puppy showing up on Percy's step. I have a thing for strays.  
_

_**newXmoonXfox **- Quite possibly._

**Chapter 13**

For a moment, Nico wondered if this was what normal kids did as he dangled from his bedroom's window. Aside from the sneaking out to search for the immortal remains of their mother bit of it. He glanced down at the garden – one very large story below him – before refocusing on the task at hand.

He dug the toe of his sneaker into the sculpted crack, testing his weight before reaching out for a parallel pillar built up against the wall. With a hitch and a wiggle he freed his other hand and braced himself between two pillars before removing his sneaker.

It was simpler than he expected, bracing himself against the pillars with his hands and feet and slowly working down. His arms were shaking trying to hold himself up, but as he dropped the last few feet to the garden and his knapsack slipped from his shoulder he grinned triumphantly up at his bedroom window.

Nico picked up his knapsack with arms half dead, very aware of the knife strapped to his forearm and the shoulder burn screaming at the sweat trickling down it. He slung the knapsack's straps across his chest for weight balance and to keep it off his burn as he glanced about. He couldn't keep the devilish grin from stealing across his face as he slipped silently down the sculpted path.

Persephone's garden was dimly lit by the phosphorus glow of the Underworld, casting blue-grey streaks across Nico's face through the fragrant flowers still in full bloom despite Persephone's prolonged summer absence.

Nico reached the outer wall separating the sanctuary of Persephone's garden from the barren fields of the Underworld. He lightly stepped over the scoured spot where he had attempted the summoning of his mother. As he placed his hands against the trunk of a weeping willow, he recalled the vague, dream-like vision and the woman's face – the one that so closely matched his. Nico thought he looked more like his mother than Bianca had, but he couldn't be sure. Trying to remember his mother's face was like trying to hold water in cupped hands – it trickled away before he could memorize it.

But he had a vague idea of what he was looking for. Nico was certain – absolutely certain – that his mother wasn't in Tartarus. As he stared at the spot where flowers seemed unable to grow again, he frowned. Even when he tried to summon his mother, his sister had warned him against it. And he hadn't succeeded – he had summoned a _memory_, not a soul.

Something moved behind Nico. Cursing silently, Nico dropped to a crouch and held deathly still. He had learned many things in his years of wandering alone; including that it was amazing what you could get away with by not moving.

He almost broke that rule that moment. He wasn't sure what he expected to see, but his father walking through Persephone's garden was not anywhere on the list. Walking wasn't even quite the right verb – he was moving slowly along the path, as if so lost in thought he was unaware that his feet inched themselves forward.

As Nico watched, his father's arm brushed a plant. The plant withered and died in seconds. Hades noticed immediately and reached out a hand to catch the shriveling blossom, but it went grey and changed to a film of dust. There was only silence in the garden as Nico held his breath and his father stared at the dust on his hand, before slowly rubbing his fingers together.

Hades raised his head, and Nico followed his gaze up to his own bedroom window, where a solitary light shown inside his father's fortress. Puzzled, Nico looked back to Hades to find him gone.

Nico crept forward to the path his father had walked on and inspected the dead stalk, to discover the entire plant was beginning to rot. Nico frowned at the goo on his fingers, wiping them on the flagstone path as he glanced back at his own window.

There was a moment of hesitation where he almost wanted to go back. As Nico turned back to the tree, he wondered where that had come from. With fresh determination, he was up the tree and across the branch without so much as swaying a leaf. He didn't let himself give a glance over his shoulder before he dropped to the ground on the other side of the fortified wall. He cast a look around the fields with conquest as he adjusted his knapsack, shoulder burning.

Nico left his father's home behind him as he went off in search of his mother.

**To Be Continued...**


	15. another word from our sponsor

**Snippet for Avkiar for getting the 136th review  
**

_Avikar: Ooh! How about a snippet from Hades' view about his feelings for Niko, Persephone, and Niko's mother? It'd be canon Break Myself, and it'd occur as like an omake for the current chapter? I imagine that right now he must be feeling rather frusturated that Niko's acting the way he is, even though Hades is trying to do what he sees best for his child. :3 I know everyone likes to see his awkwardly cute parenting~ w And maybe you could include something in there about why he's so angry with Percy? Your choice. :3_

_Colt: Here you go, m'lady! The next actual chapter of Break Myself should be up - at the latest - Sunday night. I'm offering at least one more snippet for getting the ***th review, but not telling which one so it's more random :P This snippet should answer some questions brought up by the last chapter... and maybe cause a few new ones.  
_

The precious things in this world aren't lost – they get taken.

Hades reflected on that he probably knew, better than anyone – how things are taken away.

After all, he had kidnapped his wife from her mother and held her hostage in the Underworld, eventually having to trick her into staying at his side with the pomegranate seeds. Her mother had cursed him and begged him and any other god who would listen to free her daughter. But because of the pomegranate, Persephone belonged in the Underworld for half the year now. And Hades inherited a very annoying mother-in-law with his now-wife.

He walked the flagstone path of the garden the pomegranate came from. The garden was larger now – much larger. Persephone made herself a haven away from the stench of death amid the leaves and blossoms. Early on, Hades had often found Persephone out in the flowerbeds, weeping. Where her tears fell flowers grew, reaching towards her face as if to comfort her. He had watched her often, her long hair entangled amid the flowers and grass as if she were nothing more than an exotic blossom herself, watering her own roots in the Underworld with her tears. The garden was grown in her sorrow, and Hades himself could not touch the plants nurtured by her grief, even in these long years since.

In those days, the garden would wither and die when Persephone left and revive with abundant vitality when she returned.

Hades' gaze fell across the flowers, still in full bloom despite Persephone's absence. When did the flowers begin to bloom through the winter? When did Persephone's tears stop falling? When did Demeter begin to visit the Underworld with her daughter? Hades couldn't remember when he started to watch the women tend to the garden together, making it grow and push against the gloom of the Underworld. That garden was the only source of true life in the Underworld, everything else either a spirit or some kind of god.

Except for Nico.

As Hades thought of his son, he felt the pain for everything else he had lost – the few faceless children he had never known, and the frivolous lovers they had come from. He suspected none of the gods set out with the intent to have half-mortal children. They were simply a by-product of union, a misfortune of fate in Hades' lot. He had to think about them that way, because otherwise the loss would have to mean something. It would mean his children were taken from him as he took Demeter's from her.

Maybe the garden began to bloom in the winter around the time Hades ceased looking at mortal women.

But Nico's mother had been different – to not see her exquisite beauty in body and soul would be an impossibility. After many years of looking the other way, her beauty forced Hades to look with an allurement he could not deny. He hadn't planned on a child at all – much less two.

Hades felt the life flee from the plant before he realized he had touched it. He reached out to catch the falling blossom and it faded to ash in his hand. He still could not touch her garden, his eternal punishment for her grief. Many times Hades had thought the Fates played a cruel hand to him.

Like the loss of Nico's mother. Precious things were taken, not lost. And the Fates seemed to want to make sure he felt that.

Now, as he stood in Persephone's garden staring at the dying plant, he realized maybe they had set his life up to give him his son. His extraordinary son, who had to be saved for the day he would help change the way of the gods. The son he did not want to ever have taken away from him again.

Especially not by Percy Jackson.

Hades gazed up at his boy's room where the light shone through the darkness of the Underworld, like the warmth of Nico's life amid the bleak aura of the dead. To know his son was safe, where he could protect the fragile mortal state, was a comfort to Hades' mind. But the fact that his son was currently upset with him was not. He couldn't sense his son without the boy having his gift. But if he granted them back, he was certain Nico would run off to the cursed camp... and Percy.

They needed to have a serious talk about this Percy Jackson business, or his son would be lost to him without having to be taken away. Without glancing again at the dead plant, Hades spirited away to the hallway outside his son's door and knocked.

**To Be Continued**


	16. Chapter 14

_Sorry for the so-late chapter, mates. Several things compounded at once – dad got injured, homework got insane, and friends had some melt-downs. Fun times. The only reason you're getting an update now is because I'm sick and my dad thinks I'm already in bed. Ta-da._

_Also, I wasn't sure how to continue at this point. So I made it up as I went along. Uh. Yeah._

_*opens the reviews*…*quickly shuts it*…*slowly opens it again* Wow._

_Avikar: I'm glad you liked it!_

_Paraxenos: No, the flower thing is not myth as far as I know. I made it up. Cause I like it._

_AMB3220: My thinking is that BECAUSE of the events in the last book, Hades appreciates Nico. Before that he thought nothing of him – which I tried to explain in his thoughts because he didn't want to get close to another child of his he will likely lose. …Too late for that._

_GuiltyBystanderInnocentCrimina: I don't take being compared to Rick Riordan as anything BUT a compliment! Although I think he's far better at it than me :P_

_And a blanket thank you to everyone who reviewed – you are awesome, mates. I'm glad people seem to like Hades' awkward parenting. The guy needs some classes on it, seriously. For those wondering about the plot: Yes, there is one. Sort of. In the 'not really' kind of way. You may need to google some of the names used in this chapter, btw.  
_

**Chapter 14**

As the monster faded to dust, Nico collected his knife and cursed. Alright, he would admit it: this probably was not the best idea. The Underworld had a certain exhausting pull on mortals – rather like how dead and heavy legs felt after a mile long run. Nico had never experienced the full pull before, even with his last few years slinking through the Underworld's shadows. But apparently, a lone, unprotected demigod was too tempting to resist. That was the fourth monster that had charged him.

He stayed crouched as he wiped the blood off on his ragged band hoodie. Nico warily listened for a moment before sliding the knife back into his arm sheath, wishing he had grabbed his sword instead. His usually hawk-sharp senses were muddled – proven by almost walking into the last monster.

He shivered hard from the cold of the Underworld and pulled his holed-infested sleeves over his hands. He wished he had his bomber jacket, but it still hung in the closet at Percy's house. The memory warmed Nico for a moment - the apartment filled with people all laughing and celebrating, the gentle hug from Percy's mother, Percy's arm around his shoulders, and feeling just… welcomed.

Nico jerked his head slightly to toss his hair from his eyes and groaned under his breath. "This is such a bad idea."

"I'll say."

Nico's knife was out and pulled back to be thrown as he whirled around to face… a boy. In pajamas. With _feet_.

"Hey?" the boy asked casually, raising his hands in a 'no threat' gesture. His blonde hair looked like a permanent case of bed-head, long and shaggy and completely covering his eyes. "I come in peace." His hand made a Vulcan sign.

Nico took in the footie pajamas with a slight tweak to his mouth. "Uh… I doubt you'd look for a fight dressed like that."

"Hey, they're comfortable." The boy nodded towards Nico's knife. "Would you put that away already?"

"You're not dead," Nico stated and the kid yawned as naturally as a mortal might breathe.

"Very observant of you! Nah. Closely related though." The boy quirked a grin, which turned amused as he nodded to behind Nico. "Think fast."

Nico felt the rustle in the otherwise still air and whirled around, his knife burying in a harpy's face, recoiled in preparation for a screech.

"Nice aim!" Nico jerked as the boy appeared right behind him, glancing over his shoulder easily. "And that's without your powers? Damn."

"What the – get away!"

The boy trotted over, which looked ridiculous in footie pajamas, and fetched Nico's knife. "You're good. Trying to impress someone? Cause you sure have for m-"

Nico snatched the knife back. "Shut up! Who are you?"

The boy laughed, and in that second Nico felt a surge through the Underworld. The boy immediately stopped laughing. "Oh… your daddy is hell-on-wheels, ain't he. Just discovered you were gone, I bet. Which is kinda funny, when you consider how he completely disregarded you until you showed him up and helped whats-his-face save Olympus. While everyone was asleep! You still have nightmares about that – only they're all dead instead of asleep." Nico's blood was running cold as the boy spoke, cocking his head to the side as he carried on. "Sorry about that – my son gets really carried away sometimes."

Before the boy could finished his next yawn, Nico's knife was at his throat. "How do you know about that?"

"Morpheus tells me all about your dreams. He's a good boy and listens to me, well, except when choosing sides in war. But, that's family for you."

The thoughts finally connected in his head, and Nico moved away. "You're a god," he said plainly.

"Hel-lo. Took you a while." The boy shook his head, which looked more like a massive wave in his shaggy hair. "Look, I _like_ you. So I decided to intervene for your sake and stop your mad little quest before you get hurt. You're not good at looking after yourself."

Nico didn't like the stress he had put on the first part of that, feeling a little weirded out. So he turned away from the god and looked for his knapsack he had dropped at some point during the fight. He wanted nothing to do with the gods at the moment, just lose himself and forget everything for a while. The gods messed everything up. "Leave me alone. You don't know me."

"I know lots about you, little godling. From your worst fears to your interest in Percy Jackson."

Nico's fingers closed on the strap of his knapsack tossed against the rock wall, the god's words causing his heart to suddenly race in his chest. He slowly turned back to the god, who was no longer a boy younger than him but at least Percy's age and now wearing pajama bottoms.

"What did you say?" Nico asked, meaning to sound demanding but unable to bring his voice above a shaky tremor. Shit. Shit. Someone knew about- "What do you mean?"

"I see it all in your dreams Morpheus shows me." The god yawned again. "Man, I need to get back to sleep soon-"

"Who are you-" Nico's fingers slipped to his sheathed knife.

Suddenly Nico found himself pressed against the rock wall, his own knife pressed to his throat and his throwing hand pinned out from his body. He stared wide-eyed up at a different face, one he couldn't explain except for haunted.

"Tell me, what were you planning to do to a god?"

"Thanatos, give the boy back his knife," the other said easily as if telling a child to return a toy.

"I know you," Nico said, and felt the skin of his throat graze against the knife. "You're the god of death. You work with my father."

"Wait, so you know him but not me." For a surreal moment, Nico could swear the first god sounded _jealous_.

Okay, Nico was getting fed up with this weird creepy crap. And his mind still swirled around what the god had said. And now they're talking about him like he's not pinned against the wall. "You said you wouldn't follow me," the first grumbled.

"You said you wouldn't approach him, Hypnos."

"What was I supposed to do, let him kill himself on this wild goose chase of his? I'm grown fond of him through his dreams, thank you very much." The first god – Hypnos, Nico was finally able to name – came and plucked the knife from Thanatos' hand.

As soon as the knife was out of range, Nico snapped his free arm out and caught the god's gut, following it up by dropping to the ground and kicking up at his head. Except his sneaker never connected, caught in mid-air by Hypnos. The god only grinned down at him, amused, and from this angle Nico could see his eyes.

"Take ten, little Nico."

Nico's eyes slipped shut, and the last thing he knew before falling asleep was his body being hoisted over a shoulder and squeezed.


	17. Chapter 15

_This chapter is being uploaded so soon after the last as an apology for the long wait to all the loyal readers. The rest of you can fart off. lawl. *dies a bit* Uh. Yeah. Being sick has some benefits. Except scrounging the net for PercyxNico fanart. Still not a lot out there... Anyways. I think this chapter moves a little too fast. I want to write more here, but blah. Going to go take a nap myself and try to sleep this off instead of finishing my homework or something, y'know, productive. ...I'm making no sense to myself. So if this chapter makes no sense, let me know and I'll redo it. Writing while sick is interesting.  
_

_Thanks to everyone who reviewed so quickly after the last chapter update - you guys are amazing, mates! Apparently, Thanatos and Hypnos aren't as obscure as I thought they would be. Yes, they are real gods, not OCs._

_PharaohDehli - um, it's kinda hard for me to bear children. You'll have to ask the scientists about that one.  
_

_9 tailed trickster - thanks for the 'get better', mate. You won't see a true Percy POV in this, sorry. Life doesn't come in omniscience. Besides, I like leaving Nico dangling._

_ZZZZZZ..._

**Chapter Fifteen**

The sounds of camp wafted past Nico, multiple voices dimmed from distance and the faint clang of weapons. Nico could distinctly pick out one voice, a voice he could always hear amid others, this time calling out "That is a sword, not a giant key!" Nico smiled as he buried his face deeper into the pillow and listened.

"I'm worried, Annabeth."

"You're more than worried." Her voice was less distinct, but still recognizable. "You're obsessing."

"I am not." Their voices seemed to flow in and out, like a tide, echoing against nothing.

"Are too. Look Percy, we're finished. We never even really began. We both know that. It's not going to work – and see, you're not even that upset over it."

Nico frowned. What were they talking about? He couldn't see their expressions.

"Why don't you just admit it already?"

"Leave it alone. Tighten up that defense or you'll get a sword in your side!"

"Would you just-"

"Just what, Annabeth? Leave it!"

"Just admit it, already! You're kidding only yourself!"

"Go back to Olympus."

"Oh, take that stupid denial and pride of yours and shove it sideways, Perseus Jackson!"

For a moment there was nothing but the sound of metal on metal, and Nico tried to roll over to fall back into deep sleep, but his arm was caught and a weight crossed his chest. Then came a hesitant sigh. "Nico…"

At his own name, Nico jerked awake, suddenly very aware of the arm across his waist and chest under a blanket, and his right arm stretched above his head that wouldn't move. He glanced up and saw a leather strap around his wrist, attached to a panel in a headboard. He twisted his wrist and it turned in the strap with a harsh graft to his skin. His attention immediately shifted to the arm that tightened around him.

The god Hypnos was lying next to him, curled up against his side as if Nico were some kind of teddy bear or giant stuffed tiger. He squirmed closer and nuzzled his face into Nico's shoulder.

"_Get off of me_!"

The violent kicking shoved the god right off the bed, taking the blanket with him and Nico realized his band hoodie and faded black shirt were both gone.

"…ow," came from the pair of feet still on the bed.

Nico was already off the other side, his restrained arm crossed awkwardly in front of him. "Where are my clothes?" he yelled, jerking on the strap. "Where am I? What-" He jerked hard, "is this?"

The messy bedhead rose up from the other side. "I was asleep."

"And I was _kidnapped_!"

Hypnos looked at him for a moment, as if still dazed, and pointed out, "You were _running_ _away_."

Nico braced his foot against the headboard and kept tugging. "Get this off me! Let me go!"

Hypnos dragged himself up and tiredly flopped on the bed. "Would you stop? You're giving me a headache."

Nico growled as he yanked hard on his wrist with each word. "I am so sorry I am-" Nico kicked against the headboard, "-disturbing-your-sleep-you-kidnapper!" His foot slipped and Nico fell over, tumbling off the edge of the bed and wrenching his arm.

"Hurt much." Hypnos stated more than asked.

Nico hissed as he rubbed his aching shoulder, his hand running across the burn marks from his father's fingers. "And molester!"

"I wasn't going to sleep next to someone that smelled."

Sore spot. Nico stopped himself mid-sniff. "I do not smell!"

"Would you be quiet already?" Thanatos' voice came from somewhere behind him. Nico was on his feet again, quick as a cat, looking over his shoulder as he still pulled at the strap. He couldn't see the second god through the dim light. He wasn't even certain of his surroundings. It look like an altered cave littered were various debris, like the miniature waterfall across the cavern and the dreamcatcher above the bed and toys that could easily be from Nico's own childhood.

"What do you want with me?" Nico demanded, but the only response was a slight snore from Hypnos, sprawled on the bed again. "Hey, wake up!" He kicked the bed.

"Gods, you're noisy," Tanatos grumbled, and appeared from somewhere farther in the shadows. "He couldn't obsess over a quiet one, could he?"

He passed by Nico and Nico shivered as his fingers scrambled for some purchase in the strap to pull at it. "Sit down, boy. He'll play with you when he wakes up."

Nico twisted around and glared after Thanatos, bracing one knee of the bed as he whirled around. "What do you mean by that-Hey!" Thanatos disappeared into the shadows on the other side. "Hey! Come back here!"

There was no response. Nico hissed and turned back to the god in the bed, looking for all the world like a harmless dreaming boy. "HEY! Wake up! Wake up you jerk!"

"Be. Quiet," the god groaned as he rolled over.

"No! Let me go! Now!" Nico tugged hard on his wrist again, but now his whole arm from shoulder down was in flames. "Let me-"

Suddenly he was twisted onto his side, chest up and legs down and wrist wrenched painfully above his head and his other arm pinned beneath Hypnos' hand. The god's other hand was buried in Nico's dark locks, holding him in place.

Hypnos gave a very knowing smirk as his fingers tightened in Nico's hair. "Look, I'm used to sleeping. A lot. Fetching you took time out of my mid-afternoon nap." As he spoke, his face became more angled and the shadows darkened around his eyes.

Nico swallowed hard, then narrowed his eyes. "So why kidnap me then?" he demanded. Hypnos tightened his hold again and Nico grimaced in pain as his neck was forcibly exposed.

"Because. All I do is sleep. I can't dream myself – so I borrow other's dreams." Nico kept himself from shifting uncomfortably under the god's intense gaze and glared back at the god, his face no longer hidden with baby fat. "Yours are especially interesting."

"What are you talking about?" Nico demanded, his voice strained from his head wrenched back.

"Normally demigod dreams are all prophetic – they're not just dreams. But yours tell more about you than you think. Yours caught my attention." Nico tried to turn his face away from Hypnos', his hair almost pulling out of his head. "_You_ caught my attention."

Hypnos nuzzled Nico's neck, tongue sneaking out and following the curve of his jawline. Nico cried out and tried to jerk away. He was suddenly very aware of his bare chest and everywhere Hypnos' body pressed against his.

"Ge-Get off!"

Hypnos pulled back with a smirk, which turned to an aggressive growl. "So you can either entertain me-" Nico's eyes widened as Hypnos nudged his leg between Nico's, "Or let. Me. Sleep."

Nico couldn't bring himself to respond, and a second later Hypnos rolled off next to him. "Good boy." His arm went back around Nico's waist and Nico didn't dare breathe for a moment. "Now shut up and I'll play with you later."

A minute later the god was snoring into his neck again. Nico squirmed out from under his arm and slipped off the edge of the bed, his wrist keeping him attached as he crouched aside the bed. He warily eyed the sleeping god, his appearance back to a child in footie pajamas and sleeping peacefully.

"Shit," Nico's voice shook a little as he ran his hand through his hair, his scalp still sore from Hypnos' hold. He stared at the god, his mind racing as he tried to figure a way out of this one. He glanced back at the waterfall, then squirmed about to get his free hand into his pocket and closed on the coins there. Only five. "I hope you're near some water, Percy," Nico breathed, and tossed the first coin.

**To Be Continued**


	18. Chapter 16

_This chapter was uploaded, then got some comments that annoyed me and was taken down. When I rewrote it, I originally planned to change the whole plot from here out, but I twisted it so it could still work with the original plot.  
_

**Chapter Sixteen**

Nico flipped the last two coins over and over in his hand. The first three tries hadn't worked– one because he missed the fountain, and the others Iris couldn't connect through to Percy. He tried to space them out, but with no judge of time he wasn't sure if it was really a few minutes or the hours he felt it was.

He felt the bed move as the god in it stirred again, very soon after the last time, and Nico knew that meant he might wake up soon. He could still feel the knee working between his legs and clenched his knees tightly to his chest with his free arm. He tugged at his trapped arm, and had to bite back the hiss of pain as he pulled the congealed blood out of place once again. He could see the dried rivers trickled down his arm, almost to his elbow, and tried to ignore it.

He wished he had his knife to cut through the strap – but both the knife and his arm sheath were gone, probably absconded off with his hoodie and shirt. He tried to slip his hand free while it was slick with blood, but it simply wasn't wide enough. The heardboard wouldn't give, not without waking the sleeping god. Thus, his options came down to the two coins he clenched in his hand.

Had he waited long enough since the last one to have a chance at Percy being near water? He considered trying one for his father, but the only water in his fortress was the fountain in the main hall and Nico's bathroom. Doubtful he'd be near either at the moment. Nico couldn't even attempt to predict anyone else's movements.

"Percy…" he whispered, and buried his face into his clenched knees. "Please… Please…" He wanted to cry, his eyes were threatening to. Gods, he was scared and angry and miserable – he wanted to be anywhere but here, locked up with some psycho. How did this happen? A few - hours? Days? How long had he been asleep? - ago he had been with Percy. How did everything coming to this?

Maybe he could try now. No, there wasn't enough time – just wait. He didn't have many more chances. He clenched his knees tightened and fought the urge to rock back and forth lest he accidently wake the monster on the bed. "Percy…"

He could picture him, standing on the field, watching the campers with bright eyes and the wind in his dark hair, hands cocked on his hips. He should be smiling, but he wasn't. His face was unreadable, lost in thought. Gods, Nico wanted to be there. Next to him. He focused, trying to picture himself there. It was like straining against a barrier in his head, but a dark spot appeared beside Percy like a weird shadow. "Percy…"

Percy's hands suddenly dropped and he whipped his gaze around him. "Nico?"

Nico jerked out of his half-sleep as the bed moved again, and a hand shifted through his hair. "What are you doing on the floor?" Hypnos asked lazily. Nico froze, then clenched his legs tightly and stared ahead, the coins in his hand slippery with sweat.

"Come on, get up here."

He had to stall for time. And he wanted answers. "What do you want with me?" Nico asked.

"You… intrigue me. For a boy with few true connections to people, you are rather eager to please.

"Am not." Nico didn't like how the fingers trailed down to play with the locks of hair at his neck.

"You so are. How often do you dream at night of being lost, searching for someplace to go…" he ghosted the back of his fingers across Nico's neck. "You could find that place here."

"No. I want to go home."

"Home?" The god suddenly laughed, condescending like he was a child. "What home? The home you dream of with your father? Dark halls, cold rooms, where you feel so lonely you hide away and listen to music to drown out the silence? Or that cabin back at camp, a miniature version of your father's fortress you thought would make him happy – where the campers all look at you when you walk by?"

Nico tried to shut out his voice.

"No, the home you want is with Percy Jackson, isn't it? You dream of him so often."

Nico stared ahead, trying to judge time. There had to be a chance now, right?

"You know, I can change my appearance." Nico felt the bed shift, and the movement at the corner of his eye made him turn to look at a dark head and green eyes. Nico knew what he was trying to do.

"You don't look anything like him," he snapped back. "Stop it."

There was a moment of silence and Nico kept staring ahead. Nico felt Hypnos' fingers trail down his arm. "Look at this. Why did you struggle so hard?" Hypnos pressed his lips at the base of the strap. Nico jerked, doing nothing but scrape the strap against the headboard and cause his wrist to throb again.

"I didn't even know you existed a few hours ago," Nico hissed. "Then you kidnap me, tie me up, and threaten me? All claiming because you're interested in me from what you've seen in my dreams?"

"Yes," came the simple reply. "I had to wait until you were alone and vulnerable. No demigod powers, or you'd get your dear old dad on my case in a second. Never thought I'd get my chance."

"You're mad," Nico retorted.

"Oh, come on now." Hypnos started tugging on him. "Aren't you glad somebody's paying attention to you? Wouldn't you like that?"

"Not from a psycho." He tried to move away form the god's touch, knowing inherently he had used up any time he could buy by the sudden change in touch from gentle to demanding.

Hypnos was pulling at his shoulders, dragging him onto the bed, and Nico squirmed to get free. In a moment of clarity he chucked both coins towards the fountain and sent up a fervent prayer to any god that was listening as he screamed, "Percy! Dad! _Anybody_!" Then Hypnos' hand closed over his mouth and Nico was on the bed, held against Hypnos' body, now molded to match Percy's age and appearance and dressed only in pajamas bottoms once again. Nico twisted his neck to free his mouth and screamed, "Let me go!" He arched his back and his fingers tore at the arms holding him down as his trapped wrist rattled uselessly against the headboard.

Then everything became hands and legs and Nico thrashing in any way he could move to free himself, Hypnos grunting, "You're supposed to give up and go limp at some point!", and Hypnos' waist pressing against his and finally pinning him down. Nico's feet scrambled across the bedding trying to find a hold while he struggled. "Get off! Get off get off getoff!"

Each minute passing was only proving to piss Hypnos off some more. "If you don't stop, I will put you back to sleep," Hypnos threatened, suddenly more menacing in his older form than he had ever been. Nico tightly shut his eyes so he didn't have to see the Percy imposter and he arched and kicked. "Come on now, Nico. Can't you just pretend I'm Percy and enjoy it?"

"Shut up!" his hand worked free from Hypnos' hold and he struck out at the god's fake face.

The hand was easily re-caught, and his arm twisted so it was up under him now and Nico shrieked at the sharp spike of pain across his shoulders from both arms in painful positions. "I've seen your dreams – I can do exactly what you want him to…"

"Fuck you!"

The pain intensified and Nico screamed as hot liquid pain raced down his free arm, and suddenly he couldn't move it. In the moment he was distracted, he felt his pants and briefs being forcibly pulled down his narrow hips without even the preamble of undoing them. He heard Hypnos tearing the denim to get them off over Nico's kicking legs and flinging them somewhere. Nico felt hot tears in his eyes as he tried to kick and buck despite the sudden pain from several points on his body.

Hypnos stopped momentarily and turned his head, and a moment later Thanatos re-emerged. Nico was about to cry out for help, but Thanatos gave a disgusted groan and turned away. "You could at least warn me, brother."

"You can stay and watch," Hypnos said in a teasing tone and Nico kicked out at him with both feet. One connected with Hypnos' jaw and Thanatos called out something about coming back later when he w as finished.

"You're really starting to piss me off Nico," Hypnos growled, and despite Nico's struggling replaced himself on top of Nico, grinding their lower bodies together. His hands moved south and grasped, painfully tight, and Nico tried to jerk back to get away but there was nowhere to go and the fingers were still _moving_-

"No! Stop-_STOP_!" Nico's voice broke in a horrible scream of pain.

Suddenly, there was a weird crack and Hypnos' head jerked to the side before he toppled over the side of the bed… and started snoring. Nico stared for a moment, before his gaze raised again.

Standing across the foot of the bed, holding Riptide so the handle had been introduced to Hypnos' head, was Percy Jackson.

**To Be Continued**


	19. Chapter 17

_FANARTS :"DDD KyoAkiyamako of deviantart did a fan comic of chapter five (you have to see it to get it), and my mate RosaEldi of deviantart did a picture of the 'oh shit' scene from chapter ten! BWA HA HA. Both are amazing. And both have won either my undying affection or my first born child… whichever is worth more on the market these days.  
_

_If anyone is wondering how I picture Nico, look up Rollo Weeks in his role as the Thief Lord, only scrawny and too thin and black hair. It's the closest I can explain. Erase the spaces in these for the fanarts:_

_http:/ RosaEldi . deviantart . com/art/Break-Myself-Oh-shit-163878890  
http:/ __KyoAkiyamako__ . deviantart . com/art/Break-Myself-Are-you-finished-163000295_

_I love fanart. It's awesome to see people's interpretations of scenes and such. __Sooo…yeah. Got an anime con in a few days, and then going out of state for a while. So the hiatus will continue a little longer. At least this chapter's long? And for all the PMs… Ho. Ly. Crap._

_reach..more - yes... I actually am doing the 'slash' thing. It's just very slow building. Sorry to disappoint. There are other good fanfictions on here that aren't slash though, if you'd prefer._  
_Arcanelle - I don't know the Winds... sorry. I will look that up._  
_Blaid - I generally avoid using other people's characters because it's hard to portray them as they can. But thanks for the offer._  
_9 tailed trickster - I Would say Percy got there so fast cause he's just amazing, but it's part of the plotless plot. ...sort of._  
_Mission to Marzipan - lol well, as long as the glee is AFTER Percy showed up..._  
_Blanket response: thanks everyone who likes Hypnos and Thanatos... no, this is not the last you will be seeing of them._

_Thanks to everyone for the get betters and good lucks. You mates are awesome. Been busting my butt trying to finish off costumes for the con. Check em out at my deviantart, www . Colt-kun . deviantart . com_.

**Chapter Seventeen**

"Percy?"

Nico was sure this was too good to be true as Percy planted a sneaker on Hypnos' legs and kicked them the rest of the way off the bed in anger before dropping to his knees next to Nico.

"Nico, are- what-" Percy stumbled about with his words before just throwing his arms around Nico and squeezing tight. Nico could smell the sun and the scents of camp on Percy's heated skin and clothes. He would have turned his face into Percy's neck to inhale deeply, if it hadn't made him hyper conscious that his own body was chilled and bare as Percy's embrace made pain shoot across his shoulders. Nico had to bite back a cry of pain, and it came out as a stressed grunt instead.

The sound made Percy pull back and scan Nico's face. Nico couldn't believe Percy was here, furrowing his brow in mixed anger and other emotions Nico couldn't recognize. "You're in pain," Percy stated more than asked, his gaze moving to Nico's trapped wrist and then down his body. Nico's cheeks turned hot as he moved his knee in sharply to try and block Percy's view. Percy's eyes immediately flashed away, and he tugged at the blanket on the bed to fold it around Nico's body.

The god on the floor snored loudly and rolled over. Percy glared at him, tightening his grip on Riptide, before turning back to Nico and focusing his attention on Nico's trapped wrist. He hissed as he inspected the congealed mass of blood to leather.

"Percy," Nico fumbled to get his cottony mouth operating again, "Percy, what-how did… here?"

Percy set Riptide to the leather strap and warned, "I'm sorry, this will hurt." Nico caught a tone of ache in that before Percy started sawing through the leather, trying to move carefully. But it didn't stop the pain lacing from the disturbed injury and Nico had to turn his face into his taunt shoulder to hold in the whimper. A few moments later his wrist fell free, the leather sleeve still attached, and Nico immediately drew it into his chest. It looked worse on closer inspection, the raw skin almost completely covered with dried blood.

"How did you get here?" Nico was finally able to ask, shifting with one arm that was still dead and the other held to his chest.

"I heard your voice." Percy moved back down, setting Riptide aside to continue wrapping the blanket around Nico. "I've heard it before, from Grover. Then you opened a shadow portal in camp, and I went through it."

"Portal? But I don't have my-"

Over Percy's shoulder, Nico saw Hypnos stirring and shut up. Percy glanced back and nearly growled. "We're going," he hissed.

Percy yanked his shirt off over his head and without hesitating, pulled it over Nico's head, stopping only to gently ease it over Nico's arm. Percy's fingers felt warm against his chilled skin as he helped Nico slip his arms through Percy's shirt. It fell around Nico's scrawny frame like a tent.

Percy just grabbed Nico, blanket and all, and hauled him up against his chest as if Nico weighed next to nothing. Then he moved off the bed and bolted down the tunnel the way Thanatos had come from, moving far swifter and surer than he had navigating the underworld.

Nico probably blacked out for a moment, from exhaustion or pain, because he stirred when Percy landed on his feet hard from a high jump. Nico opened his eyes and blinked at his surroundings.

"Are… are we in a subway?" he asked.

"Yeah," Percy replied. "We're somewhere along the express." He glanced up and down the tunnel before making his way across to the platform. Nico looked behind them at what seemed like a service door.

"I thought I was still in the Underworld," he said. "…for some reason." The he realized, as people on the platform gave them a sideways glance, how odd this looked. "Percy, put me down. People are staring."

Percy hesitated, but set Nico on his own feet, which felt numb without shoes or socks. His knees almost collapsed under him.

"The portal brought me here." Percy nodded in the general direction of the platform. "Can you make a portal back to camp?"

"I can't open a portal. I didn't open a portal," Nico replied. "And… I don't... want to go back to camp, anyways. Not… not yet." He shifted uncomfortably.

Percy made a frustrated noise and shoved his hand through his hair. The gesture was so familiar Nico almost laughed. Percy caught the snort and looked at him. "You just did what you point out to me all the time," Nico stated.

"What?"

"Run your hand through your hair."

Percy gave a strangled laugh, as if the comment was too much at the moment. "Okay, okay. We need to call someone for help." The people on the platform were largely ignoring them except for a few glances, thanks to New York's general populace having little care for odd sights. "Come on, let's get up on the street and find a pay phone. It's nearly twilight."

They took the escalator up and moved along the buildings, Percy positioning himself on Nico's other side as if to run as a blocker to any random attacks… which honestly, Nico wouldn't be too surprised by at the moment. It took four blocks of uneasy walking and attempting to avoid night people before they found an operating phone booth that hadn't been smashed in a robbery or vandalized for fun. Percy slipped inside and Nico leaned against the glass, feeling utterly exposed on the open street. Not to mention how he looked, much less felt. Because this couldn't possibly look weird. At all. A shirtless Percy dialing the payphone while Nico waited and drowned in Percy's shirt accessorized with a bloody arm and a face stiffening with bruises. Who would think that suspicious?

Percy had to attempt the phone number four times before he gave up – proving long strings of numbers and dyslexia were not a good mix – and Nico only heard him saying, "Can you connect me to Sweet on America, please. …Yeah, I need the phone number for Sally Jackson? She's my mom…" as he shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the phone booth.

In a second, rough hands were on him again, running down his sides and squeezing painfully into his sensitive spot where his left hip became thigh, sending a sharp spike of pain radiating out and leaving behind a horrible ache. "Nico!" Nico's leg spasmed and his eyes jolted open at Percy's voice.

Nico blinked at Percy, who was now in front of him and looking down with worried eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Nico lied. His hip hurt now, an annoying addition to his body's other complaints.

"Mom'll be here in a few minutes." Nico nodded, as he caught the look of a middle-aged woman glaring at them. Percy glared back at her before raising an arm as if to block Nico from her. "Come on, let's fine somewhere a little less… open."

The enclosed bus stop was just up the block and the two of them ducked inside, Nico gratefully sinking to the bench as the waning summer day faded into dusk. He winced and had to shift a few times, Percy sitting right next to him.

"I'm sorry."

Nico looked up at Percy, surprised. "For what?"

"…everything." Percy kicked at a piece of rubbish as his shoulders drew in tighter together. "Just… everything. Dragging you back to the Underworld, and …and starting this whole mess."

"It's not like I went kicking and screaming." The phrase felt funny in Nico's mouth, and he realized he had been doing exactly that when Percy showed up. The memory made him curl his body in on itself tighter.

"What… happened?" Percy asked hesitantly.

"I…" Nico started and hesitated, unsure how to phrase it without making himself sound like an immature child. He didn't want to admit that to Percy. Fighting with his father, running away, getting himself kidnapped, being molested? How did someone explain that? He tugged at the hem of Percy's shirt, trying to cover more of himself. "I-I…"

Percy's arm suddenly went around his shoulders, tenderly avoiding the injured joint, and pulling Nico against him and pressing his cheek against Nico's hair. "I'm sorry," Percy repeated in an unsteady voice. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

Nico opened and shut his dry mouth several times before whispering hoarsely, "Thank you."

And then he started to cry. Silent tears dripped onto Percy's bare shoulder. His first instinct was to stop them, but Percy's other arm rose and wrapped around him and he began to rock, murmuring apologies for nothing under his breath. It had been a horrible day – night, whatever – and he was in pain and his heart hurt and the boy he loved was holding him - not because he had any feelings in return but because of what Nico had been through - … And the whole situation was so damn unfair that for once he said screw it. He was going to cry.

He turned his face further into Percy's shoulder and just let the tears slip from squeezed eyes, his chest barely hitching as he continued to quietly cry. Percy just held him, held him and silently comforted him. For a moment, Nico could feel his heart fluttering.

Nico smelled the faint soft sweetness before he heard the gentle voice of Percy's mother softly asking, "Percy? Nico?"

Percy shifted and looked up at his mother, but Nico didn't move. Suddenly, he realized how he looked. In front of Percy, this was okay. But in front of others… he suddenly felt exposed and horribly weak. He quickly pulled away from Percy, who looked surprised.

"Mom, I'm sorry for calling…" Percy started, and Sally ignored his apology as she moved towards Nico.

"Oh Nico, what happened?" she barely breathed, her hand tenderly reaching to cup his cheek. The gesture was so… full of genuine concern that Nico almost started crying again.

"Percy, Paul is in the car." She waved a hand to the car barely visible through the dark glass of the bus stop. "Go tell him… tell him we need to get home as soon as possible."

Percy hesitated, looking to Nico then to his mother before nodding and slipping around the door.

"Can you stand, Nico?" she asked cautiously.

"Ye-yeah," Nico nodded, and moved to stand up. She immediately moved to help him, carefully taking his less-injured arm to offer support.

Percy returned and without saying anything, slipped himself into his mother's place at Nico's side, and his arm around Nico's shoulders. "Come on, Nico."

They made it to the car, and Paul looked at him in shock before finding something very interesting about his steering wheel.

Percy only moved his arm from around Nico long enough for Nico to slide into the seat, then replaced it once he got in the car and sat in the middle section of the backseat. The car ride was so silent Nico could hear everyone's individual breaths, and Percy's heartbeat. He still felt horribly chilled to the core, and Percy's warm skin against him felt like sunshine.

"Nico," Paul started carefully in the quiet. "Who do we call to let them know you're with us?"

"No one." Nico looked at the blood on his arm, for lack of anywhere better to look. "There's no one."

Percy's arm tightened around Nico.

They remained silent the rest of the way to the apartment until they got inside the door, and Sally took over like an over protective mother hen in the military. "Percy, change the sheets on your bed and find some clothes for Nico to wear – and clean your room quickly. Paul, heat up the spaghetti in the fridge and find the painkiller in the kitchen – not aspirin, he's still a little too young." She steered Nico into the bathroom and started running a bath. "I'm sorry if this is a little hot," she apologized as she pulled out a stack of towels. "But heat will help relax your muscles and soaking is going to be the best thing for you, and to get that… the blood off your arm."

Nico nodded as she busied herself with pulling out some bandages and cream. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Oh bloody hell. Bruises from the occasional strike during the struggle against Hypnos were starting to form, an especially dark one across his cheekbone making his face look even more drawn. His eyes were red and looked bigger than normal and Percy's shirt hanging off one shoulder made him look like he had shrunk in on himself. Gods, he looked pathetic. What had happened to him? He wanted to blame this on the lack of his powers, but knew that wasn't all it.

Sally saw him looking in the mirror at himself in shock, and carefully turned him away. "Do you want help?" Sally asked tenderly.

Nico thought he was going to shake his head, but he nodded again instead, as if he couldn't respond except to nod to her. "I can't move my arm," he admitted, motioning to the heavy dead one at his side. He could barely make his fingers twitch, and move it about sluggishly as if it were asleep.

Sally nodded in turn. She wrapped a towel around his chest before gently removing Percy's shirt and helped Nico get in the tub with towel and all, saying she didn't care if he made a mess on the floor with wet towels and puddles. "Percy does it all the time," she confided in him with a touch of secrecy to her voice and a smile. Nico smiled back, before grimacing at the heat of the water. It hurt, in a good way.

"I don't want to move again," Nico moaned in relief once the initial burn faded. Sally gave a soft laugh, before turning her attention to Nico's arm.

The hot water burned the wound and Sally apologized multiple times as she carefully worked the leather free from his arm. The blood had to be worked at with a soft cloth and soap, Sally only removing as much as Nico could stand without hissing sharply in pain despite trying to hold it back.

There was a cautious knock at the bathroom door before it cracked open and clothing was passed through the opening. "Everything okay?" Percy asked hesitantly.

"Yes dear," Sally replied as naturally as if they _weren't_ trying to scrub off dried blood. The door shut again.

Sally finally removed the leather piece and immediately dropped it into the trash can. Nico stared at his arm, angry pink flesh to dark red with trickles of fresh blood and rivers of dried. Sally gently took it from his gaze, and carefully applied half a bottle of Neosporin and a wrapping of gauze. She left him with a washcloth and soap and the instruction to keep his bandaged arm out of the water.

Nico probably would have stayed in the tub forever scrubbing the rest of himself raw if he didn't feel so paranoid and exposed, despite the waterlogged towel around him in the bath. It took several deep breaths before he pulled the towel away and left it in a soggy mess aside the bathtub. He had the fastest bath he ever took, bar none, and dried off as quickly as he could with his dead arm. He could move it a little, but it felt heavy and sluggish as if he had lain on it while sleeping.

While he dried off, he noticed the other bruises all down his body from the struggle with the god – including one high inside his leg and a dark, purple one on his aching hip. He tore his gaze away and hid the bruises with the clothes Percy had leant him. Percy's shirt and pajamas pants drowned him, as expected, but wearing clothes again was so comforting he wouldn't even complain that they were blue.

He carefully came out of the bathroom, glancing down the hall to the living room where he heard Paul and Sally talking in hushed voices. He only caught something about not being able to call the police because what could they do against gods but we need to do something maybe telling the camp, before he turned his attention to the kitchen. Percy was hunched over his sink, hands buried in his hair as the water ran into the basin.

"I don't know what to do," Percy moaned. "He's been through something horrible – and he's not talking about it – "

"I'll be there in the morning. After you're done, that is. Is there anything else I can bring other than ambrosia?" Annabeth's voice through the Iris message was unwelcomed, but not unexpected, Nico was surprised to realize.

"No." Percy shook his head, the shakily drew in a breath. "Alright. Alright... tomorrow." Percy stood up with a heavy sigh. "Tomorrow."

Nico shut his eyes tightly, trying to ignore the thoughts raging in his head, hearing Percy turn the water off after Annabeth said goodbye. Nico slipped back towards Percy's bedroom, staring blankly at the freshly made bed.

Okay, he wasn't entirely sure how to feel about all of this. Sally, Paul, Percy, even Annabeth. Being here. Feeling… welcomed, in a way.

"Nico?" Percy's voice came from behind him. Nico turned and looked at the dark haired boy in the doorway, balancing a bowl, a glass of water, and a bottle of pills. "Here, something to eat."

"I'm not really hungry," Nico mumbled as he sat down on the edge of Percy's bed. Percy put the bowl in his lap anyways. When Nico saw the spaghetti sauce colored blue with food coloring, he couldn't help but smile. He stirred it half-heartedly.

"You need to eat, Nico." Percy's voice had a note of pleading to it. "Do you want something else? Do you not like spaghetti?"

"Never had it," Nico admitted, before sighing and plucking a few strands with the fork. He wasn't sure what to expect when he ate, but the knee-jerk reaction and dropping the fork wasn't it. Percy was asking what was wrong somewhere, but his voice was drowned out by "Nico, the noodles go in your mouth, not your hair" and Bianca's laughing, the smell of fresh tomatoes and seasonings and sweet bread so strong Nico could swear it was laid out before him.

"Nico!"

It all faded as Percy snapped him back to the present, the spaghetti bowl on the floor. "I'm sorry," Nico immediately blurted, and moved to reach for it. Percy made a frustrated noise and stopped him.

"It's okay. It's okay. I'll clean it up. Just… take these." Percy handed over the glass and two pills. "Don't worry about it, I drop food all the time."

He left the room, and Nico stared at the mess on the floor. What had that been? He knew the woman's voice had been his mother's, he couldn't mistake it after seeing the memory in his father's garden during the Half-Blood War. But was it a memory, one that broke through the mind-wipe? Could he possibly hope others would come through as well?

Percy returned with some paper towels and started to wipe up the mess. Seeing him reminded Nico of the glass and pills in his hand, so he quickly popped them into his mouth and drank.

"Nico, we need to talk," Percy started, and Nico froze with the glass tilted back. He choked for a second when the water flooded forward, and Percy ebbed the water before Nico could drop the glass.

Shit, did Percy want him to tell what had happened with Hypnos? Wasn't it obvious? It felt like a glaring billboard across his face, his entire body – hell, _etched_ into his _arm_.

Nico caught Percy's flushed look at Nico's stricken face. "But in the morning," he said quickly. "We… we can talk. In the morning. After you've… after you've slept. Gotten some rest."

"O…okay." Gods, Nico didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to think about it.

"Annabeth said she'd bring some ambrosia for you tomorrow, too. So you can… y'know, heal." Percy looked away. "So, yeah. You can sleep here tonight, okay? If you need anything, just… just call. I'll be on the couch. Okay?"

Nico nodded tightly. Percy sat there on the bed a few more moments, just looking at nothing before abruptly rising and saying goodnight, leaving and taking the messy paper towels with dishes with him.

Nico crawled under the covers, leaving the light on to ward off the darkness of the night. His knees pulled tight against his chest, cradling his injured arm that ached. He looked around at the walls of Percy's room, taking in the posters and dirty clothes kicked into less-obvious places. Percy's stuff was everywhere, marks of his life. For a moment, lying among them, Nico wanted to remain there – as another piece of Percy's life. But didn't he once have his own life? A room like this one, somewhere? He recalled the voice from the ... thing he hesitantly called a memory. Wasn't that his life? And why did it feel like it was over, and this wasn't his life at all? Maybe this just wasn't meant to be his life.

But it was now. The aching injuries, the pain in his heart and in his head, the total emptiness inside...

No, he refused to believe this was meant to be his life.

Nico buried his face into the pillow that smelled of Percy's sea salt and sunshine, trying to ignore the pains and aches of his body. He tried not to think about… anything. He shuddered, and turned his face farther into the pillow. Percy. Think of Percy. Think of Percy, nothing else, fall asleep, and don't dream.

But nothing was that easy.

**To Be Continued...**


	20. Chapter 18

_So the anime con was epic. My group and I took third in the cosplay contest - not bad for our first entry! __Now I'm living in a different state. So ... fun times. Pardon for the delay in an update. This chapter should start tying back in with some of the eariler stuff. And sorry again... I'm not an Annabeth basher. As evident in this chapter..._

_Got some questions about exactly 'what happened' to Nico in the previous chapters. That is up for you as the reader to read into as you like, I left it vague on purpose. Juuust like the beginning of this chapter. Well okay, that's much less vague.  
_

Review reponses! yaaay...

_lazyme - possibly._

_PharaohDehli - Nico definitely needs a hug and a sandwich. Seriously. The kid eats nothing. Especially since the beginning of this fic._

_Lunarecplise3 - Comparing Nico in the books to any fan form of him, I bet most people think he's better out of the books. He just didn't get enough time in the books to develop as a character very much. Although seeing him go from a bratty 10 year old to the sword-fighting, dead army summoning bad ass in the last book? He was due for some epicness._

_Peachless - Rollo Weeks is the closest I can picture to my version of Nico, but definitely scruffier, thinner, and a bit harder around the eyes. What I like about Rollo Weeks is he has the right hair, eye color, skin tone, and build. At least in the Thief Lord, he does._

_Roxas - yeah, I felt guilty leaving for a while without updating._

_supera2587 and mus4u - some die hard readers to do that! Nice!_

_So... yeah. enjoy. I'm going to go to bed. And wake up in two hours. Thanks for all the reviews and favorite adds and watches, mates - you are all awesome.  
_

**Chapter Eighteen**

So he knew it was a dream. So he knew it was fake, and when he woke up his heart would break all over again. But at the moment, he didn't damn well care. Even if it was a dream, right now Percy's arms were around Nico, their foreheads pressed together with damp sweat as they moved together.

Even if it was a dream, Nico felt safe here. With Percy over him, muscles shifting and straining and tanned skin slick with sweat, holding him tightly as if the dream knew it could slip away at any moment, and his name on the lips of the boy he loved.

Gods. Even in his dreams, Percy was beautiful to Nico. The dream was fuzzy on the details, but Nico felt the skin on skin to the brushes of fingertips as dream Percy strayed out to trace contours of Nico's body before returning to hold him again to prevent the dream from stealing off into the dark.

On one cautious exploration, Percy's fingers trailing along Nico's right arm and reached his wrist, encircling it with his hand. The tight sensation made Nico jerk in horrid memory of pain. He tried to pull away from the feeling before it brought him too close to consciousness, but the dream version of Percy didn't let go.

Then the touch turned from loving to demanding. Nico instinctively jerked his arm free, but the hand sharply moved and clasped onto his throat. Nico started struggling, but his arm was trapped above his head again and the body over him became oppressive.

"I'm not letting you go that easily," the voice hissed in his ear – the voice that was Percy's but wasn't anymore. Nico knew the difference, knew that this wasn't Percy - or at least his dream version of Percy - over him anymore. This wasn't Percy protectively covering him, but the fake Percy pinning him down.

Nico tried to yell or speak or _something_ – but his voice came out in broken sounds of grunts and gasps as he clawed at the hand crushing his throat.

"Did you really think you could escape me by physically running away?" the voice that wasn't Percy whispered, his lips brushing Nico's cheek. "I have power in everyone's sleep – in everyone's dreams. I see them all."

"Le…t-t-" Nico squirmed, trying to work free and push away from the intimate contact.

"Nobody gets away from me, Nico di Angelo." He smirked. "Your last name is almost poetic… should I just call you my angel?" Nico tried to hiss back at him, but was rapidly running out of air with his struggling. "A dark angel, for certain. Don't worry, you'll get used to the name when you come back to me-"

"F-…off…"

"But you will. Trust me. You will." And Nico's last access to air was cut off by lips.

Then Nico kicked right up into the groin and broke free. Nico staggered away from his own dream as he heard cursing behind him, gasping for breath and ignoring the phantom pain in his body.

"Go ahead angel, run away – Just like you were running away before!" Nico felt like he was stumbling down a dark corridor of moving shadows, trying to sort them and find his way into the grayer areas where he could wake up. "Running away and chasing after a woman you will never find!"

Anger flared as whispers of dreams came around him, like trip wires and traps to ensnare him. Using his dream version of Percy as one snare, and the threat of his mother as another trap - He stumbled as the corridor warped about him and nearly fell through it. _A lullaby for you…_

He didn't know if it was because of the certainty gained in a dream, or if he really did remember that tune, but he knew he had heard it before. Although he intended to keep running to escape, he stopped to listen, feeling like he was sinking further into the moving shadow of that one spot as the words became clearer and he sank further.

_Sweet dreams I do not see, cause darkness scares me - is it because I'm still fifteen or the loneliness in me? _

The tune stuttered before continuing _I wish I may, I wish I might_ – and with the second stutter Nico could see the moving shadows forming into a bedroom. _Sleep soundly through-through-through the windy nights _– a girl cursed over another stuttering. _Just to dream of you tonight – _

"DAMMIT! This CD cost a fortune to import and it's _scratched_!"

_A lullaby for you…_

She was bending over a desk, covered with drawings and color markers. Nico could almost make out her face before suddenly the forming shadows broke apart like rippled water as he was pulled through them by someone shaking his arm and calling his name.

"Nico dear, Annabeth is here to see you."

…Not exactly the words he wanted to wake up to. Nico blinked up at Percy's mother as she smiled gently at him. "How did you sleep?"

"Ah…" his mouth felt full of cotton. When he started to sit up, his body protested with multiple spikes of sharp pain. He felt like his lower area decided to cramp up on his insides in the middle of the night and didn't want to move now. Trying to sit up was painful, as was moving his legs over the side of the bed.

Sally obviously noticed the grimace and the slight limp as he got to his feet, betrayed by her small sharp intake of breath. Nico gave her a shaky smile of reassurance before dragging himself into the bathroom. He leaned against the closed door and forced himself to slowly breathe in and out, before looking at himself in the mirror. The bruises from yesterday had finally filled in dark purple and blue patches and the bandages on his arm had worked loose. Nico splashed water on his face and ran his wet fingers through his hair, discovering another bruise in addition to banana-shaped dark patches forming on his neck.

"Shit…" He leaned in to the mirror to inspect closer. The door clicked shut behind him, scaring Nico as he whirled around to face Annabeth.

"Gods Nico, what happened?" she asked, staring at him through her long blonde bangs, before they widened as she realized what she said.

"There's this great new thing they invented called knocking," Nico suggested hoarsely with a bit of a snap, one hand defensively covering his neck as if he could really hide the bruises. Annabeth slowly reached out and pulled his hand away. Anger flared across her face, and shame flooded Nico.

She carefully let go of his arm. "I'm sorry," she said softly, in a voice so unlike self-assured Annabeth Nico wasn't sure how to respond. She turned to her knapsack and pulled out a vial of ambrosia. "This will help."

"Thank you," Nico mumbled, opening the vial. He stared at it for a moment.

"What's the matter?" Annabeth asked.

"If I don't have my powers…" Nico started slowly, his voice rasping in his throat, "Can I drink this?"

Concern crossed Annabeth's face. "Your powers? What happened to your powers?"

Nico opened and closed his mouth several times, as if chewing on the sounds before speaking. Annabeth took his by his shoulders and steered his towards the closed toilet lid. He grimaced as she pushed him to sit down, and her frown only deepened. "Start talking, Nico," she ordered.

"I…But I-"

"Shut up and start talking!" she paused. "You know what I mean!"

Nico just wanted to clam up and go back to sleep. But Annabeth made another frustrated noise. "Why are you like this?

"Like what?" Nico asked blankly.

"So damn… Nico! Talk to me. Tell me what is wrong so I can help!" Nico didn't look at her. "Why won't you talk to me? You talk to Percy. It's like you forget I'm your friend too."

"You wouldn't understand-" Nico started.

"Understand what?" She threw her hands up, frustrated. "That you're a demigod? That you're not like other kids? That you haven't had any real family? That you're in love with _Percy_, for gods' sakes?"

Nico nearly dropped the vial.

"And don't act like that surprises you to find out that I knew!" Annabeth stuck her finger in his face. "You're so damn lovesick over him you might as well be a whimpering puppy!"

"Wha…Buh… Uuuhn?" Yes, now was the perfect time to employ the mouthbrake. Thanks, brain.

She tossed her head to get her hair out of her eyes. "Okay, yeah, it worried me a bit while we were dating, but honestly, I didn't mind because you were trying to hide it. But we're broken up now. I'm over him. I'm fine with whatever."

"That's so a lie," Nico responded automatically. He would kill his mouthbrake later.

"We're demigods, remember? Our parents define abnormal behavior. Look up Ganymede. And I am over Percy! I sort of knew it would never work out – I mean, I still tried, and I wanted it to, but I'm just too-…and he's too-… you know?" She exasperated and grabbed at her ponytail. "And just, we were a bad match. It's like we hooked up just cause we were the boy and the girl in some story and it was destined to be just because we were both there…" Her eyes narrowed and she pointed at Nico. "But ENOUGH! This is about you! Start talking!"

Nico couldn't help it. He started laughing. The vaguely hysterical, mental-breakdown kind of laughter when there's nothing else to do except laugh or cry. Annabeth barely caught the vial and Nico before they both hit the floor. She held him tightly as the laughter faded, threatening to turn to tears.

"Oh Nico…" she moaned. She gently rocked him, cradling his head against her shoulder. "We're all family. That's one thing I learned at Camp Half-Blood. We are there for each other, because… well, who else is going to be?"

"What do I do, Annabeth?" Nico made out between raspy gasps for air.

Annabeth was silent for a moment, then pulled back and sternly held his gaze. "I don't know," she admitted. Nico thought the world might just break in half. She pressed the vial to his hands. "First step – get better. Outside…and in. You need… to talk to someone. Just get it out. Get everything out. If you don't want to tell me, then tell Percy." She gave him a look. "_Tell_ him."

"Why the hell are you telling me to…" Nico trailed off.

"Because I want to be friends with Percy, and that won't happen until things move on," she retorted in Annabeth-fashion of sharpness. "Yes, I'm upset over breaking up. But guess what? I'll get over it. He will too. But right now… you need to get over this." She nodded to the ambrosia in his hand. "Drink up. Your body is still a demigod's. We'll go kick your dad's ass and get your powers back later." Nico nodded, and carefully started sipping at the ambrosia. It burned, but not anymore painful than usual. "…After you tell Percy that you're in love with him."

Nico snorted ambrosia out his nose as she cackled slightly – the girl would never do something as feminine as giggling. He knew she had figured it out, hell, she had said she had figured it out, but to have her actually say it was more shocking than he expected.

He was in the midst of gagging on the ambrosia and watching the bruises and wounds fade when the knock came on the door. He froze, immediately thinking Percy had overheard this conversation and was about to yell at him and throw him out, when Percy's mother cracked open the door with a mixed horrified and worried expression on her face.

"What's the matter?" Annabeth and Nico asked in almost perfect unison.

"Percy…" Sally drew a sharp breath and started again. "I tried… I called his name- shook his shoulders- But Percy… Percy isn't waking up."

**To Be Continued **


	21. Chapter 19

_Poor Nico. He's just getting so screwed over at every turn. Also, does anyone else have the problem writing Percy Jackson fanfiction where they have to 'correct' the swearing? I have to keep checking that I'm typing 'gods'. So I got a question I want to put out to all the readers: **"The title is 'Break Myself'. Who is the 'myself'?"** What are your thoughts, readers?  
_

_Oh yeah, I wrote another PJATO fanfic titled 'Heat'. Actually, it was part of a scene I was thinking about for Break Myself but didn't want to use. I have a few more I'm thinking of linking into it's own short story thing, so go check it out and tell me if it's worthwhile. That is more of just a way to write out some scenes and see how they work. Anyways.  
_

_Kitty of Deadly Poking - 1: awesome name. 2: Random musings are too fun to ignore._

_Daughter of Hermes - yeah, finally showing a little bit of PercyxNico. :P Like the summary says... very, very... VERY slow-building. How many chapters are we into this? Gods, someone, smack Nico. And Percy, while we're at it.  
_

_Ninemillionhigh - it's okay if you don't review, I'll still write no matter how many readers/reviews this gets. But I admit, getting feedback makes me feel guilty that I'm not writing so I update sooner. Which is why this chapter is up so close after the last one. Wow... that sounds mildly pathetic.  
_

_lunareclipse3 - I dunno. Is it?_

_PharaohDehli - ...why do people keep thinking I'm a girl? Is it cause I write boy/boy? And sorry, you said regenerate. I thought Doctor Who. *geek*_

_9 tailed trickster - yeah, most PercyxNico writers either ignore Annabeth or make her evil. But by her personality in the books... I dunno. I think she'd be the kind of girl you'd still be friends with after breaking up._

_Shadow Sunset - *innocent face*_

_Has anyone else noticed these last few chapters are slightly longer than before? Hmm. Okay, and in this chapter I will admit - there's a little fudging with mythology. I even mention it in the story. But Rick Riordan did it first, so I don't feel bad. HA._

_Blah. I'm bored today. Anyone wanna AIM me at PanInScarlet today while I work on the next chapter?  
_

**Chapter Nineteen**

Percy was still sprawled on the couch when Nico dashed to him, pain temporarily forgotten. His soft black hair hung over his shut eyes, lanky legs hanging over the edge just a bit, and one hand slightly curled next to his face. Even though he inherently knew Percy was still alive – he knew he would feel it if Percy suddenly died - Nico felt a rush of relief to see Percy's chest rise and fall slowly. He also pressed his head to Percy's chest, telling himself he was checking for a pulse. Totally. One hundred percent. Shut up conscience.

"He isn't waking up," Sally said again in a voice that sounded like she was barely staving off some hysteria. Nico could see where the blanket had originally been over Percy but cast aside in her attempts to wake him up.

"Percy? Percy!" Annabeth tried, shaking his shoulders gently, then harder. And again. "Percy!" She frowned. "Sorry about this-" Then slapped him. Nico couldn't bring himself to protest as Percy's head shifted to the side, but he didn't stir.

"Percy?" Nico asked, and at his voice Percy's brow furrowed. Nico hopefully repeated, "Percy?" But the furrow faded.

"He's dreaming," Annabeth said in disbelief. She pointed at his eyes, which were slightly twitching beneath closed eyelids. "REM sleep – Rapid Eye Movement. That means he's in the deepest stage of dreaming. But he's not waking up."

"Dreaming…Hypnos." Nico's lip snarled around the name. Anger flared at the thought of Percy trapped anywhere with Hypnos.

"Hypnos?" Annabeth asked, puzzled. "The god of sleep? What has he got to do with dreams?"

Nico didn't want to point out how obvious that correlation was to a self-boasted genius. "Remember during the Half-Blood War, his son Morpheus was putting people to sleep. But Morpheus is the god of dreams. Hypnos is the god of sleep. Yet he has powers in people's dreams too. I don't get it – maybe they have power in each other's domains or something. But…" He babbled as the wheels in his head churned. "But that doesn't matter – whatever way it works, Hypnos has power over people in their sleep."

"But what would the god of sleep want with Percy?" Sally demanded.

"I… I-I…" Nico stumbled, trying to find the words. Well, you see, Hypnos wants my ass but I ran away from him and he knows I'm in love with your son – surprise – so I'm guessing that may have something to do with Percy not waking up. No, Nico decided that wouldn't be the best way to put it.

"I have to find out what's going on," Nico finally settled on saying. Annabeth looked somewhere between suspicious and cross.

"And how do you plan on doing that?" she demanded.

"You're not going back to… to that place Percy found you in?" Sally looked mother-hen-pissed. "No. No way young man."

For a surreal moment, Nico felt like he was being talked to by a mother. Not his mother, the dead one, but just… a mother. That was his but wasn't. Before he could think on that feeling, the moment passed and Nico said, "I have to figure this out so we can wake Percy up.

"You are not. Going. Back," Sally firmly ordered, and Nico had little doubt she would tie him to a chair first.

"Look, I don't know what's going on here!" Nico yelled desperately. He was frustrated past the breaking point. "I have to save Percy, no matter what. Hypnos is somehow involved, and I need to figure out how. I've only encountered him twice, in person and in my sleep, and both of those weren't pleasant and I barely got away, so I'm not sure what he can do but whatever it is, I don't want him doing anything to Percy! So unless you have a better idea of figuring this out, we have to work with what we have!"

There was silence for a moment, in which Nico felt like a jerk for yelling at Percy's mother. Then Annabeth stood up slowly, set in her familiar plotting face. "Instead of physically going back…" Annabeth started slowly, "Can you go back in a dream?"

Nico frowned. He wasn't sure. That grey clouded… corridor thing had been confusing. But that strange certainty you develop in dreams, where you know things without knowing how, spoke reassurance that he could get through it. Could he do it again?

"It's worth a try," Nico finally responded.

Then the hard task came of trying to get Nico back to sleep. He wanted to do the drastic quick-solution and try sleeping pills, but Sally firmly refused, saying he was too young. Finally they agreed on a dose of NyQuil, which Annabeth said always made her sleepy when she took it while sick. That and a glass of warm milk – which Nico actually found really gross – and they put Nico back into Percy's bed and shut the blinds and curtains. The barely mid-morning light creeped in, and that's where Nico's attention went as he laid there on Percy's bed.

He head spun with the possibilities of what could be happening. He itched to get up and do something, instead of just lying here doing nothing. He tried to think of how tired he was, considering his sleep last night had been fretful and cut off early, but his body wouldn't listen to reason. It wanted to get up and walk around, so trying to keep perfectly still was horrible.

Gods, he was frustrated. Why couldn't things be simple again – back before, when a god wasn't after him, his father wasn't pissed at him, and Percy wasn't in danger? When it was just him and Percy at camp, goofing off and having fun as if they were normal kids at a normal summer camp. Like when Percy tried to shove him off the dock and used a wave to knock them both over, or when Nico accidently changed the field during sword practice by raising some dirt platforms. Or the time when Nico had been feeling a little depressed, over pretty much everything, and Percy had appeared and made him feel better. Nico would always remember that moment. The sun was barely beginning to set, so the red blaze filled the sky and caught Percy's dark hair so it looked rusted like an old photograph, Percy's eyes filled with concern as he wrapped his arms around Nico in a hug –

That moment had confirmed all the whispers of suspicion in his heart about the feelings he had for Percy. Percy had stayed with him, playing cards until past curfew and he fell asleep out in the woods, and barely stirred when Percy picked him up and carried him to his newly built cabin. In the dark Nico came to an understanding with his heart, and accepted it as he drifted off to dream of Percy saying his name.

For a moment, Nico thought he was walking through the memory of that dream again, before he realized the tone of Percy's voice was different now – desperate and edgy. The dark he had been in was different too – it felt different. Like… darker.

Shit. He knew he was back, with that weird feeling he got in dreams he knew were dreams. It had worked. Sort of. Nico had no idea where he was. And he couldn't move to figure it out. Maybe it hadn't worked.

"Stop it!" Nico heard Percy's voice and his heart leapt. He tried to lift his head, but found he couldn't. Everything felt incredibly sluggish and heavy, as he struggled to barely open his eyes. That was an incredible amount of blood on the ground he gazed at with half-lidded eyes.

As things slowly started to come further into focus and pain started to seep in, Nico realized where the blood had come from. He also realized it was his body – or his dream body, however he wanted to think of that – half-curled around the pooling blood, with the remains of his clothes soaking up the blood. The pain was getting stronger as details became clearer.

He recognized a blade edge as it pressed against his lower right arm. "Is it here?" he heard Hypnos' voice ask. Just that bastard's voice made Nico want to strangle him.

"Don't," Percy whispered hoarsely.

"Is it?"

"Don't!"

Nico wanted to ask 'don't what', before the tip thrusted through his skin. Nico tried to scream, but it came out as a barely muffled groan. Gods, the pain was getting more intense as Nico was starting to sense where the worse injuries were.

"Nico!" Percy yelled desperately.

Nico heard Hypnos give a chuckle. "Well, look who decided to barge his way into your dream, Perseus Jackson." The blade exited painfully, then a pajama-clothed foot stepped on the shoulder and turned Nico onto his back. He could now see Percy hazily, chained and his clothes tattered by a blade, but no injuries on his skin.

"You two are a pain," Hypnos huffed like a spoiled child. "Apparently, little Nico here is too closely related for me to be able to hold him in his dreams; and Percy has taken an Achilles-bath so I can't use him to lure Nico here…" Hypnos crouched over Nico, his young child-face twisted into a devious smile. "But that just means there's one weak point. I haven't found it yet, but since you're here, let me deliver my ultimatum now." Hypnos pressed his knee against Nico's arm, right over the newest injury he inflicted. "Eventually, Percy won't be able to handle seeing you being tortured – especially now that he knows the real you can easily be inside. He'll tell me where his weak point is." Hypnos held up Nico's own throwing knife. "So you can either come back and I'll release him from his sleep, or…" The threat dangled in the air.

"Pe…Percy…" Gods, the pain was getting too intense, like the more Nico could fill out the dream the more it was affecting him.

Hypnos bent down, so his chest was lying on Nico's, to whisper in his ear, "I told you… you'd come back." And he licked blood off Nico's cheek. It hurt too much to try and get away.

"You sick fuck, get off him!" Percy screamed, and Nico could barely see him out of the corner of his eye as Percy struggled against the bonds. "Nico!"

"Does this bother you, Percy Jackson?" Hypnos asked in a teasing tone, his voice too young to carry the menacing tone. "Or are you jealous?" He started to work a knee between Nico's legs, morphing into his naked older version. Percy kept screaming obscenities and inventive threats but the pain was starting to cloud out everything, except intensifying Hypnos' touch.

Nico wanted to jerk away, but when his dream body didn't respond, his conscious did. He pulled away from the beaten body and fell through the fog, nearly jumping to his feet on Percy's bed. His right arm didn't come with him, restricted, and instinctively Nico tried to lash out. Annabeth barely blocked him from striking her, one hand still holding on a towel on his arm.

"What the hell, Nico!" she snapped. Nico saw the blood soaked into the towel she held, and Percy's mother hurriedly entered the room with the first aid kit. She looked relieved when she saw him awake.

"Oh thank goodness you're awake, we were so worried!" She then went to his arm, carefully helping Annabeth remove the towel. A blade gash was in Nico's arm, in the middle of the half-healed, shiny scarred skin caused by the leather strap.

"What…" Nico started to ask.

"We don't know," Annabeth said, frustrated, as Sally started dressing the wound. "It just… happened. Your arm wasn't even touching anything when I peeked in to see if you were asleep."

"It happened in the dream," Nico thought aloud. Then it hit him. The bruise on his hip, the ones on his throat, the intensified soreness when he woke up – "What happens to me in my dreams with him happen to my real body." He did a quick visual check – there were no other new injuries. Maybe it was only when he was in the dream with Hypnos. "Anything he does to me in my dream happens to me in reality," he repeated the idea over and over, horrified by it's implications. What had been done to him in his dreams – Percy screaming his name…

Then the last piece fell into place, and Nico's knees went weak. "Oh gods… Percy. He's going to kill Percy."

_To Be Continued_


	22. Chapter 20

_Thanks mates. I had to go look up the trailer for Nightmare on Elm Street and I will never sleep again. I could blame this update on that, because I wasn't going to update for a few more days. But then I saw the reviews and felt super guilty. So you get it early. Making 5 Link costumes for friends and working is eating my life. Stupid medical bill I'm still paying off..._

_And question. Do you think I should up the rating on this for some of the content? I don't think it's really M, but the implied stuff could be...  
_

_Mission to Marzipan - award for best review story ever. I laughed really hard. ...what do you mean by stealing my time/inspiration?__  
RosaEldi - *INNOCENT FACE* ILY PRETTY LADY.  
PharaohDehli - still resisting the temptation to use that line.  
Lazuli - if this continues forever I will kill myself. I want to get my own stuff actually published -.-  
AMP - No predicting plot bunnies or I will revoke your breathing privileges.  
SkaterStarSurfer - no wtf questions. Nico's dad grounded him by taking away his powers. We all need plot reminders. Especially me. ...a lot.  
RainbowCupcakesUnite - yes, that's going to come back. Not for a bit, but eventually. ish.  
Hatter Madigan - I think the birthday cake scene was the opening of the slash gates.  
Daughter of Hermes - he is a little preoccupied. We'll cut him some slack. Or at least wait til he leaves the room to give each other significant looks and snicker.  
Tsukiria - not bored. and yes, you sound familiar. I think. But I'm going to pretend otherwise so I don't embarrass myself.  
Snea - welcome, welcome. We always need more fans._

_A huge thank you to all of you readers/reviewers. You're fantastic, mates._

**Chapter Twenty**

In retrospect, announcing an intent to kill her son in front of a freaked-out mother… was not the best idea. She kept as calm a demeanor as possible, which Nico had to applaud her for, but her eyes still betrayed hysteria as they focused on him, following him back to Percy's room. Annabeth was in step with her, silent as her mind raced for ideas. Nico was trying to plan, trying think of anything except _'oh gods Percy…'_

"You're not going back to that place Percy res-found you in?" Sally demanded.

"No," he replied too quickly. Okay, so he sucked at lying. And she knew it. "I'm sorry, I need to borrow some of Percy's clothes."

As he opened one drawer and looked in, Annabeth asked, "Okay, so he has a dream version of Percy? And a dream version of you-" which Nico _really_ didn't want to think about, "And he's threatening to kill Percy while he sleeps? But dreams can't kill you."

"He's the god of sleep!" Nico barely kept himself from slamming the drawer shut before opening another. "And in the dream, Percy's clothes were all cut up from Hypnos trying to hurt him and he couldn't, and me-" he wasn't going to explain that bit to two girls, "I was hurt, and it hurt in the dream, but when he cut me while I was there in dream me, it actually happened on my body." Nico opened another drawer. Did Percy own _anything_ that was black? "So, if he finds Percy's weak spot and uses it, then we can only assume-"

"-what happens in the dream happens to his body." Annabeth's brow furrowed as she thought. "But if you physically go to confront him, then you're not in the dream…"

"I don't know what to do, okay?" Nico replied, his voice weirdly calm for how frantic and frustrated and scared he felt. "But if I don't go, Percy could die. I just…" When he didn't focus his eyes, it was like he was trying to keep the ocean in Percy's dresser drawers – there was so much blue and green. "I have to go. I have to save Percy. He's saved everyone else – he's saved me-" In more ways than one- "so many times… I have to."

Percy's mother stepped up behind Nico and wrapped her arms tightly around him. Nico froze for a moment, before she whispered to him. "I'm scared for you, Nico. You and Percy. If I could… I would just protect you." She smiled down at him. "But I have to let you go, just like I have to let him go. You… all of you, are destined to be heroes." She squeezed a hug. "Just promise me something, young man."

"What?" Nico asked, his mouth feeling slightly numb.

"That you'll come back. With Percy in hand. That you'll both come back."

Before Nico could say anything, Sally released her hold on him and pulled some clothes from Percy's dresser and handed them to him. Annabeth was watching them with a weird expression, like she wished she could switch their places and at the same time wanted to help. It was too much to handle, so Nico ducked out of the bedroom into the bathroom to change.

He knew his face was flushed with a slight blush as he pulled on the pair of blue drawstring running shorts with "Jackson" printed in marker on the hem, and he had to knot the string to keep them around his waist. He smiled at the blue and black baseball tee proclaiming "the angels have the phone box" before pulling it on.

As the shirt fell around his head, drifting the slight scent of salt. Nico paused, then pressed the neck of the shirt to his nose and inhaled deeply. The smell stirred his feelings again, his longing and fear and so many other emotions he would never be able to describe or explain. They were all there – making Nico so confused.

He remembered some of the older kids at the arcade. The ones who paid more attention to each other than the games, which Nico had thought was crazy. Bianca had tried to explain as best as any young girl could. He had always thought of love as some strange kind of force he would inherently understand as he got older, like when you figure out how a light switch or the vacuum functioned and said _oh, so that's how it works_.

No, he was discovering love just got more and more confusing. Not just confusing, but scary. What else was strong enough to make him return to a nightmare? Gods… grown-ups made this look easy. When really, they were probably just as confused as he was. Maybe the whole world would be better if everyone would just admit they had no idea what they were doing.

Nico made a mental note to find Aphrodite and kick her in the shin. If he ever got the chance.

He tore himself from his thoughts and pulled Percy's shirt from his nose. Sniffing the clothing of the boy you liked was creepy at all, he tried to tell himself. After pulling on a pair of borrowed and tightened Tevas, Nico left the bathroom silently, hearing a vague conversation from Percy's bedroom. He didn't want to return to face them just yet, so he went back to the living room, telling himself he was checking on Percy one last time before leaving.

He stopped short at the man, crouching next to the couch. It took a paralyzed heartbeat before Nico felt that he was a god. And recognized which god the next heartbeat. Although he thought a god would pick a human wardrobe better – a yellow Hawaiian shirt and a bucket hat? Seriously? Luckily Percy didn't get his fashion sense from his father.

"Nephew." Poseidon voice was calm, but held a dangerous note like an oncoming storm.

Nico wasn't sure how to respond. "Um-hello, Uncle."

The god didn't move from where he was, one weathered hand brushing the hair from Percy's sleeping face. Nico could see Percy's sun kissed features grimaced slightly in his sleep.

"What is your plan?" Poseidon asked.

Nico mentally stumbled for a moment, before answering, "I don't know." Even though he did have some vague notions – none of which he wanted to think about at the moment. "But-But I have to do _something_. Percy is…" The one who helped Nico and Bianca. The one who saved Nico from his own anger. The one who was Nico's first friend. The one who made Nico feel wanted. The one Nico loved. _Everything_.

"How old are you, nephew?"

Nico stopped short at the question. "I… I don't know. Thirteen or fourteen." He didn't want to admit he could possibly be even younger. The day of his birth had been decades ago – and he wasn't sure how far he had aged before being put into the arcade or how long he had been there or how he had aged. All he had was a rough estimate based on height and appearance.

Poseidon gazed at Percy for a moment before speaking, "My own son saved Olympus at sixteen. In the days when we gods were worshipped by the masses, the heroes were so much older." He glanced at Nico and gave a soft chuckle. "I wonder what makes the heroes of this age so strong so young."

"We may be young Uncle, but we have enough of a past that we want to change our future."

Poseidon regarded Nico with a solemn gaze, before smiling. "Maybe that is why the gods, with an endless history, do little to change events. And have been forgotten. We've gotten lazy in our old age. Too used to routine." He stood, and made a contemplative noise as he kept his gaze on Nico now. "Percy was able to cause change for the first time in a long time. We're not supposed to interfere with our children's lives. But whenever Percy asks for my help… I can't ignore it. It's the curse of being a father."

Poseidon moved towards Nico, placing his hand on his shoulder. "Save my son, nephew." He gave a squeeze, right over the half-healed burn marks caused by Hades. Nico winced as Poseidon held out his hand. "You will need this."

Nico only barely hesitated before obediently holding out his hand, and he instantly recognized the pen Poseidon dropped into his palm. "RipTide?"

"You will need a weapon to free Percy. But know that you will only have one chance to use it, because it is not yours. It will return to his side."

"…Thanks," Nico remembered his manners. He felt awkward under the god's intense gaze.

Then, with only a "Good Luck", Poseidon disappeared. Nico barely had time to look away completely so he wouldn't burn to a crisp. Gods and their flashy exits.

He preferred silent ones. That's what he told himself as he slipped out the door, lifting on the handle to keep the hinges from creaking. He was silently exiting, not running away from the voice calling his name.

He consoled himself with the thought that he had made no promise.

**To Be Continued**


	23. Chapter 21

_**Author's Note:** Auuuugh wtf. Life is too hectic. Sorry for the HUGE gap in updates. You'd think with school being out for the summer there'd be more time. Nope - costumes to finish, vocals to lay, and dance routines to practice around work. BTW Is anyone in the Florida area in the USA? I'll be at Metrocon._

_BUT! The amazing K8 (RosaEldi on Deviantart) drew me more Break Myself fanart and made me feel bad enough to write more. **So go thank her and tell her she's amazing cause she needs to hear that more**. That would mean more to me than a review. The only reason I'm not dyeing my hair black right now to do a Percy Jackson cosplay with another friend is because she and I are going to be Hiccup and Astrid. (I've even got the freckles bursting out across my nose and cheekbones for it. Damn sun.)_

_And for the record, I would like to state I finished this chapter in my boxers because inspiration struck while getting dressed. Second weirdest thing I've done all week._

_August Skies: Yeah, that was a Doctor Who reference. There's a few throughout the story lol__  
Lazuli: I never said I was the fearless leader!__  
Mission to Marzipan: I am the king of sneaking around without getting caught. 2nd tip: Step on stairs right next to the wall to keep them from squeaking. And I never get tired of reviews.  
Ninemillionhigh: I try to make them sound like how Rick Riordian wrote them, so I'm happy you think they're not OOC. Thanks!  
Orochi-Ne: That is an excellent question.  
AMP: I figured since Nico really had no track of time, no idea how old he was when he was put in the arcade or how time flowed there, he could never be certain of his own age. And now I want to write that battle.  
RosaEldi: My lovely lady, you know you have me at your beck and call with your art :PP But I'm still mad at you for Hope's boomerang. *evil look* I don't want you over-working and wearing yourself out!  
Adelheid: I like Annabeth as a character, and hate to see her reduced to being a bitch in fanfiction. It's dumb. So I wrote her how I think she would honestly respond. Upset, but trying to get past it._

_Anyways. On with the chapter mates. I'm gonna go drool over Neil Patrick Harris._

**Chapter Twenty-One**_  
_

The numbness in his arm seemed to have spread to Nico's whole body. He was moving, but didn't feel quite like he was actually doing the movement himself. He had to stop and ask for directions to the subway twice from people eyeing him with mixed suspicion and concern. He felt weak-limbed and light-headed, and he wasn't sure if it was from his powers being capped or weakness in the face of the whole situation. He avoided looking at his reflection in shop windows – a pathetic, pale little wisp of a human wearing clothes too big for him and revealing more skin than he normally exposed.

Or maybe that was just his own brain berating him. He let dark his hair fall over his eyes in an attempt to hide the bags under them.

It was pretty much sheer dumb luck that he found the right subway on only the second guess. And the only way he knew it was the right one was the sight of Thanatos sitting on a turnstill flipping through a newspaper with mild interest.

"Gods read the paper?" Nico found himself asking as he slipped under the turnstill. He wasn't sure he could jump over it, and he was skinny enough to fit under.

"Obituaries. Better than the comics," Thanatos replied. Freaking figured. He lowered the paper. "Been waiting to see if you'd really come back."

"I have to," Nico answered irritably. Why were all the gods suddenly gabby?

"Why?" Thanatos asked, his voice and face betraying nothing other than mild interest. "He'd be just another dead demigod – there's plenty of those."

"Because he's Percy," Nico snapped. "And just because he's a demigod doesn't mean he's not a million other things." Annabeth came to mind for a moment, and her words of 'who else is there' came back to him.

Thanatos regarded Nico for a moment. "I can see why my brother likes you." He flicked back to the paper. "Our cave is through the service door. Good luck."

"So no chance of depending on you for help with your crazy brother."

Thanatos made a disagreeing noise. "Gods don't interfere with mortals. Unless it's to help their kids, apparently. Luckily, I have none."

Nico tried to make an impressed face. "Why?"

"Because I detest things that die."

Made sense. Nico moved across the platform, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible. He was good at slipping through unnoticed normally. He waited for a train to settle at the station before slipping off the platform at the end and skirting around the end car, avoiding the rails. He climbed the ladder built into the wall and opened the service door. He glanced back, unable to see the station, before he slipped through and the door shut behind him.

Nico knew he was in their cave because the first thing he stumbled over was a wagon loaded with stuffed rabbits. He had to shuffle along the floor carefully, the dark unfriendly to him without his powers. He ran into toys from all eras, including a sheriff doll with a drawstring and a child's name printed on his boot. Hypnos must be some kind of obsessive pack-rat.

He was drawing towards reflected light and could see the toys around him when he saw Hypnos' back-lit outline as the god looked at him.

"So you did come back," he said, pleased. Nico didn't like the cute little boy form in footie pajamas – it was like a cloaking device for that he was really a god.

"Where is Percy?" Nico asked as he carefully slipped around the god into the larger portion of the cave holding the bed. He could see part of his arm strap was still attached to the bed.

"Still here." Hypnos tapped his head. "I was hoping to at least find his weak point before you came."

Nico almost sighed in relief. He didn't want the crazy god to know Percy's Achille's point for any reason. "I want to see him," he demanded, trying to sound stronger than he felt. He wished he could grab the wall for support, but instead slipped his hand into his pocket and fingered the borrowed RipTide.

Hypnos looked upset, but nodded. Grey-blue smoke started to form near him and flowed together. Nico watched as it gathered together. A strange form of Percy molded in front of him, like liquid glass that took his shape and filled with a swirling, smoky haze that trailed off leading off towards Hypnos. He was still in tatters, looking haggard and confused. But then his hazed eyes fell on Nico and recognition flashed in them. Relief flooded Nico to the point he thought his knees were going to give out.

"Percy-!" Nico started before Percy closed the gap between them, embracing Nico's shaky body in what felt like a friendly forcefield. Then his fingers were tangled into the hair the nape of Nico's neck and their lips were pressed together. Nico's brain short circuited.

The weird noise Hypnos made behind them reengaged his mental circuits as Nico broke free. Percy was started to fade away back into the trail going to Hypnos, yelling something Nico couldn't hear as he reached for the skinny boy. In a flash Nico had RipTide uncapped and shimmering in his hand, bringing the blade down on the smoky connection.

In the moment before he disappeared in a flash, Nico could see his name on Percy's lips. He gave a weak smile back, and barely whispered, "I'm sorry."

Then Nico crashed to the ground under the weight of Hypnos and Percy was gone. Hypnos was older, older than Nico had seen before, easily out-weighing the skinny boy who slipped free and rolled away to a crouch. The ADHD part of his brain was tittering off like a chipmunk at the idea of a god getting in a fist fight with a mortal. But the rest of his brain was on autopilot, slicing through a metal red trike thrown in his direction before blocking one of the god's attacks with his still-numb arm. But the force of the blow caused RipTide to skitter away.

"No!" Nico tried to snatch up the sword, but his attention was absorbed in the fight and the next second RipTide was gone.

Nico had never really trained for close combat – the Underworld worked more on a cloak and dagger system – and especially never without a weapon. His whole will concentrated on dodging, desperate to find an opening in which to escape. It was distracted, only for a moment, by the thought of RipTide returning to Percy and the hollow echoing of Percy's voice in his head.

Then he was down, forced down and pinned on his stomach with a pissed off God above him and his limbs suddenly so damn weak they felt like they weren't even part of him anymore. Hypnos was saying something, his hand fisted in Nico's hair and Nico felt like fuzzy cotton was being forced into his head as everything started to fade out. Half awake and half asleep, he fell through half-baked dreams grown from all the yearnings in his heart of Camp, the half-remembered memory of his mother's spaghetti, dark tunnels of the Underworld, Percy's apartment where Percy was with his mother and Annabeth, a house overflowing with art pieces and a girl asleep on a canvas, and his father's fortress where Hades sat with his fingers pressed together and an expression on his face Nico couldn't identify – all at once like several dreams colliding together and connecting him momentarily to everywhere at once.

Nico saw Percy uncap RipTide and Poseidon's words clicked in his cloud-filled head. He tried to focus his murky thoughts, barely able to shove Percy and Camp aside before in desperation he cried what came out as a barely a whisper: "I'm sorry." He was so far gone that the next words he couldn't even speak. _Dad, I need your help_.

It was like a dam broke, flooding the cottony feeling in his head and drowning it. Everything came acutely back into focus like a brilliant burst of lightning. He could sense again, the buzz of the Underworld dimly in his mind, and his sword erupted from the ground underneath his hand like a rapid-growing tree. It caught Hypnos in the gut and shoved him away as Nico grasped the hilt as it emerged last and lashed out. The god was flung back, colliding with his own bed.

Nico brought himself up on his elbows to glare at Hypnos, who had the audacity to turn back into a little kid.

"You got your powers back," he whined. "That's not fai-"

Nico didn't feel like listening, and the ground opened underneath Hypnos and swallowed him up in a bubble of dirt. Nico could hear Hypnos yelling like a child who wasn't getting his way as he sent the bubble to his father. Let Hades deal with one of the lesser gods beneath him.

But a lot more was wrong with Nico than just his lack of powers, and he collapsed back on the ground after expending the extra burst of energy he had received.

His chest heaved as his senses settled back in around him. He sensed the buzz of life and death flowing around him in a constantly changing tide. With a bit of focusing, he was reassured that Percy was alive and well. He even knew that Luke had been allowed reincarnation and he had accepted. He could feel the weight of his sword in his hand again, perfectly balanced to only him. He shut his eyes as he thought _Thank you_.

"Please tell me you're not dead now," came a semi-drawled voice. Nico opened his eyes with a start, but couldn't get his body to move. Thanatos was crouched near him, just out of sword reach. "Relax. I'm kidding. I would know, remember."

"You want a piece too?" Nico asked, trying to sound tougher than he felt, sprawled out exhausted on the floor.

"Nope." Thantos' boredom was marred a bit by amusement. "Mortals die too easily."

Nico's battle senses inherently knew he wasn't a threat at the moment. "Good." He let his eyes slip shut. "Would you please pass that on to your brother?"

"I imagine the berating he's getting from your old man will be sufficient enough. For a while." Nico could hear Thanatos stretching. "He gets a bit… obsessive."

"No kidding."

"Get some sleep. It'll probably be the first good, undisturbed sleep you've gotten in a while."

Nico let out a half-strangled laugh that died fairly quickly. "I am not taking a nap on your floor." Although he knew he had no energy left to get up, much less enough to walk anywhere, and portaling was laughable.

Thanatos sighed, and moved. Nico jerked with a start as Thanatos grabbed the knotted waistband of Percy's shorts, and easily lifted him. "You could go through that," Thanatos faced him towards a portal. Nico frowned but didn't have time to think about it before Thanatos tossed him through.

Nico squawked before he landed face-down on his own bed in his father's fortress. His sword landed a moment later beside him. The portal above his bed faded a moment later. He suddenly realized that portal was from his father, and the message was pretty damn clear.

He started laughing, a form of hysterical, uncontrollable laughing over absolutely nothing that faded into exhausted tears. He buried his face into his pillow. He did try to think, think about the whole situation and how pissed his father was going to be, how he was no further in his search with his mother, and Percy…

But his body had other ideas as the tears silently escaped and he fell into the dark, like passing through swirled paint, and for the first time in his too-long life he didn't dream.

_To Be Continued_


	24. Chapter 22

_I haaaaaaate this chaaaaapter. Writing it was the biggest pain in the entire world. (and it's comparatively long for how little happens.) It took three-four rewrites before I finally got to this point where I'm saying "FUCK IT" cause I feel bad about not updating. After this, I get the weekend off and back to school. -.-_

_HatterMadigan and Lazuli: Yes, Toy Story reference! My drawstring Woody doll was lying beside me on my bed as I wrote that. For everyone else, Yes, I have a Woody doll. That my amazing RosaEldi gave me. Admit you're jealous._  
_mad-is-not-the-world: Fezs are cool. And mops._  
_Snipe Hunter 98: Unfortunately no... although I may write a short snippet from him again next... dunno yet. Everyone let me know if you want to read one after this chapter._  
_formerly AMP: Everyone seems to want to see Hypnos getting it from Hades... maybe I actually should write that... in the Hades POV chapter lawl._  
_Ceryni: I'm glad everyone seems to like Hypnos and Thanatos - I wondered if they would be considered OCs by some but they seemed to have been received well._  
_DanceToTheCadance: Thank you, and I'm sorry for changing your ways. lawl._  
_IchigoChu: Oh... I currently have two specific endings in mind. One would be about another two or three chapters... the other... ...five chapters maybe? So this is set up for either of those possible endings atm..._

_The song for this chapter is "Totally Fucked" from Spring Awakening. Cause that's how Nico feels. GODS I HATE THIS CHAPTER._

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

When Nico woke again, he thought it was entirely too soon. The lack of dreams disoriented him and it was like climbing out of a pool of thick mud trying to harden around him and keep him frozen in place. He realized he was coming to when he thought that he knew what that actually felt like.

Nico rolled over and groaned in pain as his whole body protested at the movement. He lifted his arm from his face and blearily looked at his room. He took in the grey walls, the low-lit fireplace, and the empty space scattered with the odds and ends he had collected. The things he salvaged from the river of human refuse had no special meaning to him, other than the vague notion they had special meaning to someone at some point. They were things, hollow reminders of someone else's life that Nico stumbled upon during his missions and wanderings and kept. He recalled Percy's room, filled with stuff that just screamed Percy's name and life, and felt pale in comparison.

Thinking of Percy made him wake up more, sitting straight up in bed as he remembered everything that had just happened with Hypnos. He quickly checked for the background buzz of the dead, and was instantly reassured. The noise he had found so annoying before was now a relief. His 'gifts' were back.

…which meant he was probably in due for a good talking to with daddy dearest. Over the whole damn thing, including Percy.

At that thought Nico groaned and buried his face in his hands, debating for a moment just lying there and trying to go back to sleep, or at least faking it.

Nico finally decided to face the music, swinging his legs over the bed and staggering to his feet. He was still sore from head to toe, and decided to take a quick shower to soak the pain out. The smell that haunted his senses didn't matter here. Everything smelled the same, he reflected as he toweled off. He ran his hands through his hair and shook it out, finally feeling somewhat human again. When he went to find clothes, he spotted Percy's discarded shirt and running shorts on the floor.

He couldn't help himself – he grabbed the clothes and pulled them back on, running his fingers over the printed 'Jackson' on the shorts. Wearing it made him feel slightly better, like mental fortification against his father. The blue and black shirt smelled like sea salt and summer winds - Percy, with a faint tinge of dirt Nico suspected came from himself. A mix of him and Percy.

With one final inhale of the smell, Nico gathered his courage.

Nico went downstairs, following his demigod GPS to find the source of power that was his father. He followed it right to his father's chambers, where he hesitated outside the open door. Was portaling away with the intent of never returning an option at the moment? Just… running again?

Through the door he saw his father, back to him while looking through an Iris message, but wasn't speaking. He was merely watching a dark haired girl painting at an easel by the sea.

"I recognize her," Nico heard his voice echo back to him. Well, running away was no longer an option. Thank you, failing mouth brake.

Hades swept his arm through the Iris message and it faded away before turning to his son. "Who do you mean," he said in an even tone that didn't imply asking.

"That girl. I've seen that girl in my dreams." Nico paused as he thought about that. "Sort of. More as I passed through dreams."

"You passed _through_ dreams," Hades repeated.

Nico shifted uncomfortably. "Trying to get away from-… what happened to Hypnos?"

Hades eyes flickered with anger momentarily. "He is disposed of," he replied easily.

"…what do you mean?" Nico asked

Hades ignored the question as he moved and sat down in his throne. Oh yeah, not intimidating at all, Nico thought sarcastically. But his lack of answer made Nico wonder what had happened to the god of dreams. Then he decided he didn't really care and let the whole thing drop. Hades' expectant gaze made Nico shift uncomfortably.

"Father," he started out, trying to keep his voice even. "I wanted to say… thank you."

Hades barely raised a dignified eyebrow.

So Nico ground out the next part. "For helping me." He paused, but was met only with silence. Wasn't his father going to give any ground in this? "And returning my powers."

Hades gave the slightest inclination of his head.

That motion – so dismissive like bare acknowledgement - made something inside Nico snapped. Everything that was _fear_ inside was drowned out by sheer anger. The floodgates opened and poured out – mouth brake be damned.

"What the hell - why did you take them away in the first place?" Nico exploded, his voice echoing in the void hall and crashing back in his own ears. The sheer emptiness of it made him even angrier. "Because I wanted to go back to camp? That I wanted to be around some people who depend on oxygen for their sustained existence? That I don't want to smell like a _corpse_ all the time?"

Hades spoke in a steeled voice. "I told you before I dislike your prolonged stays there."

"Oh, so the great king of the dead finally talks!" the semi-rational portion of Nico's brain reminded him that his father could incinerate him where he stood and he ignored it. "What is your problem? You can dislike all you want but _I_ want to go back and see Per-"

Nico's mouth brake finally emergency engaged and he stuttered over the name as the flames in the hall flared high enough to scorch the ceiling. Oh. Shit. Well, at least Nico would know where his spectacular temper came from in the last few moments of his life.

"Percy Jackson." The name came from his father's mouth in a tone Nico couldn't identify – some weird mixture of contempt and disgust and disbelief. That just pissed Nico off all over again and he said to hell with it all. If his father decided to throw him into the ranks of the dead, at least it would happen while Nico was standing up to him.

"Yeah, Percy Jackson. You know, the kid who saved Olympus? Saved the world? Therefore also saving _you_? He's my _friend!_ And I want to spend time with him because he makes me feel better – like I'm actually worth his time!" His throat was starting to hurt from the yelling, but it felt somehow good. "I like being around him – dammit-" And the next part spilled out.

"_I love him_!"

Half surprised that Hades' expression didn't change, Nico barreled on while he still had the steam and the life left to him. "And you have no fucking place to tell me off or ground me or do any more shit to make me feel worthless to you because you're no fucking prime example of love! You kidnapped Persephone! _Kidnapped_ her! Tricked her into being trapped here half the year - you forced her to be your wife!" He mentally stumbled as he realized something. "You did to _her_ the exact thing that bastard Hypnos tried to do to _me_!"

Hades' eyes narrowed, and Nico found that he wasn't scared of whatever nerve he hit. He was still just plain pissed.

"You have Persephone, and still you – you- you had me and Bianca with _our_ mother! How can you claim you loved her? Or Persephone? So do whatever you want – ground me or kick me out or kill me but I'm tired of this complete and utter bullshit!"

The screaming ended with hard breathing and Nico's shoulders heaving. He felt some of the sheer anger start to trickle off and leave behind…raw hurt. …and a vague sickness in his stomach as he expected the flames to engulf him where he stood, or at least to see the anger on his father's face before that. But Hades coolly accepted Nico's shouting with a furrowed brow.

"My son," he said in a forced neutral voice, "I sometimes forget that you are mortal." Nico's ADD portion wondered how he forgot _that_. "You have a mortal's view of love." Hades paused for a moment, obviously trying to control himself.

"I have had very few mortal children, Nico. Very, very few. Each one was taken to that cursed camp, trained, and taught to hate me. I never knew any of them for they despised me for their very existence."

Nico thought to himself he couldn't exactly blame any of his half-siblings for that. However many there were. For a sickening moment, he wondered exactly what happened to them before his father went on.

"Each one… even your sister… met a tragic, young death. For many years, I resigned myself to the thought that the lord of the dead should not have mortal offspring. They all have been fated to die."

Something lurched in Nico's stomach.

"I despise anything to do with my brothers or the camp they set up to isolate my children from me. Including their offspring." The emphasis on the last word rankled wrong for Nico.

"But Percy _helped_ you! How can you still hate him?" Oh look, there was some anger still left in him after all.

"Because!" Hades was suddenly on his feet, and the darkness in the room seemed to deepen and swallow the light from the increasing flames. "That sea-brined brat from my brother is taking you from me!"

The room went silent for a moment, before Nico started busting up laughing at the whole thing. The anger was completely drained from his system now and he was just tired. "You're jealous? You're jealous of _Percy_?" Then his mind blanked about the next piece and the laughter dried up. "…over me?"

"You are _my_ son," Hades said in a voice seethed with rage.

Nico couldn't believe it. "What… you think I'm picking him over you?" He almost laughed again but the expression on his father's face kept it inside. "No, it's just… I want to be with him." Nico searched desperately for anything to say. It barely registered to him that the flames were starting to die down. "I… I- He's… I don't want to take him like you did Persephone. I just want to be with him while I can, in any way I can."

After a moment, the darkness edged out of the room and the flames flickered to normal. Hades sank back into his chair, almost wearily. Nico was confused for a moment until he spoke, his voice strangely steady. "Understand this, my son, for I will not tolerate you thinking any other way. I love my wife. I love her enough that I refuse to let her go. That is a concept even mortals understand. But your mother… I love her as well."

Nico stared up at his father, confused. "But…"

"Hades." Persephone's soft tone rang in the hall. Both looked up as she entered with all the regality of a perfect queen, her expression one of infinite grace. Nico's cheeks inflamed a moment as he wondered how much she had heard of his… ravings. It wasn't like there was any other sound to drown out a mortal voice. "May I speak to Nico, alone?"

Nico felt his father transport away behind him without saying anything. Persephone smiled, a tentatively shy smile, and motioned to the steps with an open palm. "Nico, will you sit with me for a moment?"

Nico felt tongue-tied. All this time avoiding her, and she wanted to speak to him? He slowly nodded, and sat down on the steps. He realized that summer was over and fall was beginning if Persephone was here… and suppressed the frantic urge to run back to camp to see Percy one more time before he left for school. Persephone lowered herself next to him, looking dignified even as she sat on the cool floor. It felt strange – sitting even with a goddess. Stranger still that she was technically Nico's stepmother whom he avoided at all costs.

"I have felt your presence near me often in these halls," she began from nowhere. "Why did you never approach me?"

Of all the things he thought Persephone might have to say to him, this had never been one of them. "What?" he asked, sounding as dumbfounded as he felt.

"Nico, you cannot mask your warmth from me." She smiled, and took his hand. "You are warm – the warmth of all living things. I have felt your warmth tracking me through these halls, yet you never come close to me. Why?"

Nico stumbled to find words to say. "I thought… I thought you don't like me," he replied weakly. "I'm… I'm the son of your husband…"

Persephone laughed. "Nico dear, if you think that you somehow deserve my abhorrence because of your father, you are sadly mistaken." She waved her hand carelessly towards the throne. "Your father isn't like your uncles – he doesn't have multiple-" She glanced at him, and obviously changed her words, "-partners. But we both have had others we have loved. We have… an agreement, of sorts."

"Ew," Nico couldn't stop himself from saying. He really didn't want to think of his father with anyone. Really. …Now he needed brain bleach.

She politely ignored him. "No one joins with another in the attempt for a child. They are products of unions. You are a result, Nico, not a goal."

Well didn't that just put things into a pretty perspective. He was nothing more than a piece of an equation. His disgust for that train of thought must have shown on his face, because Persephone smiled. "You think me callous?"

"I think it's dumb to have kids and not… want them," Nico mumbled. "Seeing us as just… a by-product."

Persephone tilted her head with a knowing, almost Mona-Lisa smile. "Nico, if you believe you are an unwanted by-product, I have two questions. One, why would your father take away your abilities and return them only when you asked for help… and two… _what happened to_ _Hypnos_?"

Nico blinked.

"I said we didn't set out to have children – but that doesn't mean we don't care for them all the same." Persephone refolded her skit over her legs in a very human-esque way. "You are your father's child. He loves you. He loves me. He even loves your mother."

"Loved," Nico corrected.

Persephone just smiled. "Your father did kidnap me. And I did hate him. But that was long, long ago. And hate is too tiring to keep up, child. Hate, anger, fear. They fade. Other feelings replace them."

Nico looked at her face, trying to read the graceful curves. "Do you love him?"

Persephone didn't answer, just continued to smile softly. "Don't let something as trivial as fear or anger stand in the way of love, Nico." She leaned in and whispered in his ear. "And don't hesitate to use it to your advantage. Your father loves you."

Nico stewed on that for a moment as she rose to her feet. "Well he didn't barbeque me where I stood for saying I was in love with Percy."

Persephone laughed. "Nico, you're as dense as you are obvious – he already knew."

Nico's mouth made some funny movements.

"He's a god, child," she rolled her eyes like a teenager. "And your father." She casually waved as she moved for the exit. "Think about it. Who did he send to help you when you didn't have powers?"

Nico's mind stuttered as he remembered Percy randomly appearing from nowhere to save him from Hypnos. "Wait, what?"

"I'd go while you still have the chance." She winked at him before slipping around the doorway and called, "Don't worry, I'll take care of your cranky old man! Good, good care!"

The innuendo pitch made Nico groan in disgust and bury his face in his hands. Everything whirled through his head for a moment as he tried to process it. His father already knew? Was that why Hades had seemed more defensive about what Nico said over Persephone and Nico's mother?

He then heard Persephone's voice calling his father's name from somewhere in the fortress…in a tone he didn't want to ever hear aimed at his father ever again - and decided to take her advice as he pulled up a portal. He hoped Persephone would really take care of his father for him because at the moment, he didn't want to deal with it

He slipped through the portal and stepped into the sunshine.

**To Be Continued**


	25. Chapter 23

_Author's Note: Okay guys... please don't kill me? Life decided to suck for a while. And I couldn't get any inspiration to write at all, and I hate writing when it feels forced. (This isn't my job.) But now that fights and school and funerals are over, I finally felt like writing again. So to all my readers from the start - thanks for sticking around and to all the new readers who have joined us since: welcome. Thanks for not completely abandoning me while I had to take a hiatus for a really crappy few months. I'm very sorry, but I will not just drop this.  
_

_I would write responses to individual reviewers, but there's too many now. Sorry.  
_

_And here's a special announcement: as a birthday present to me (yeah, my birthday was this week) and as a Christmas present to you, I have an announcement to make:_

_**Break Myself is being made into a webcomic.**_

_I will be 100% in charge of the script, so don't fear any changes there. RosaEldi is going to be the main artist with some random pieces by me stuck in. The story will change a little to allow for better comic and paneling flow, and to keep it interesting for people who have already read this story. Please let me know what's your opinion and if you have any suggestions. So, Merry Christmas mates. And I apologize for those of you who will hate this chapter.  
_

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

For a moment, Nico was convinced he had stepped into a madhouse and not into Camp Half-Blood's main compound. Nico thought he had shadow traveled right into another game of capture the flag that had gotten out of hand as he took an elbow to the gut and almost toppled over. Campers were packed in, a riotous mess of raised voices. Nico heard Chiron's usually stern voice booming out over the campers, but even it was lost amid the sea of frustration.

Nico whirled around, trying to grasp a visual clue as to what was going on, and nearly collided right into Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

Rachel's eyes widened as she exclaimed, "Nico!"

"H-Hey," he greeted uneasily as he gathered himself together, her grabbing his arm half-way up. "Okay hi," he quipped as she yanked him closer to her.

"What's going on?" she asked in a hushed whisper, then had to repeat herself to be heard over the din of the surrounding demigods.

"What do you mean what's going on?" Nico asked, confused. He knew of Rachel, the red-headed prophet of Delphi host. She had always been someone Percy had known – not him. But the grip she had on his arm unnerved him as he got jostled hard in the back and a camper growled at him to watch himself. "And why does it seem like everyone in camp got pissed-in cornflakes?"

"Oh, nobody slept last night," she replied airly before going on, "I saw you – you were in the darkest-"

"What?" Nico cut her off with the old standby line while his brain struggled to get in gear. "Nobody _slept_?" As the words came out his mouth it felt like he had swallowed a huge rock that plummeted straight through him. He wasn't going to like this.

"Not a wink." She frowned.

"Nobody in _camp_? At _all_?" Nico supposed he should be mildly grateful that was all that came out his mouth as his mind raced to grasp at possibilities. His thoughts just circled like a drain around one central hub: Hypnos. "Did everyone OD on Red Bull or something?"

"Nico," she set her eyes on him, and for a weird moment something was there – a stirring like a fish beneath the surface of water. It was… unsettling.

"Nico," Chiron's voice came from behind him. Nico turned sharply to face him, somehow expecting the disappoint look Chiron gave when a camper let him down for being involved in the whole mess with camp. "Good to see you back at camp again, although I apologize for the circumstances."

"Y-yeah." Nico tried to squash the guilty feeling in his throat. Chiron couldn't really know what had happened. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Well, we are attempting to contact Morpheus to help us put the camp to sleep until we can figure this out."

"He owes us one after the half-blood war," Nico replied automatically.

"Yes, we are counting on tha-" Chiron was interrupted by a series of high-pitched screams. "Excuse me," Chiron pushed past Nico and Rachel, hollering out, "Children of Hermes-!"

Nico stared after him numbly, his mind too warped to think far beyond how Hypnos was involved… and that everyone in camp did _not_ know how Nico was involved.

"Don't worry, Percy and Annabeth are on their way back to camp. Although a speeding ticket may delay them for a bit when you need him." Rachel gave him a smile he thought was supposed to be reassuring, but just came off as… spacey. Being able to see what would happen must be as unnerving to her as it was to everyone else. "Remember, no demigod is ever really alone, ever." She squeezed his arm again.

Nico wanted nothing more than to wait for Percy to arrive. He tried to convince himself it was only because Percy would known for dead certain what to do. That was just who he was, and one of the things Nico desperately admired him for. There was a twinge of jealously as well, but he honestly didn't care so much for the center of attention. Percy was the hero while Nico felt more like the awkward kid come-in sidekick. His ADHD prattled off that usually the sidekick was killed when he stayed behind to hold off the baddies so the hero could run off to a happy ending with the girl.

Thanks brain. No, really.

He tried to ignore the mental image of Percy in a brown fedora and leather jacket, mostly because he was certain he had a thing for leather, while the rest of his semi-functioning brain tried to process around the whole ordeal.

The whole afternoon passed in a confusing fog for Nico – and he apparently was the only one to have gotten any decent amount of sleep recently. People were coming up short with one another, walking around in exhausted blurs, some of the younger campers were in near tears, and the Ares cabin had all but declared open war on the rest of the camp in their sheer grumpiness.

Nico wouldn't be surprised if Chiron ordered camp-wide mandatory nap-time once this whole mess was sorted out.

He couldn't help but feel incredibly guilty. Hypnos was somehow behind this to get back at him. After the second failed Iris message to Percy and a hesitant attempt to Annabeth that also didn't connect, Nico stopped by his cabin for a shower and to change Percy's gym shorts for black jeans. As he finally replaced his briefs, he could feel Hypnos' fingers raking his skin as he ripped them off. Nico briefly debated taking another shower to wash the feeling away, but knew it wouldn't do any good to get the god out of his head and his touch off his skin.

He slipped Percy's shirt back on, not even trying to come up with a reason why. He felt better wearing it – like Hypnos' remembered touch dimmed a bit with the cotton armor. When he inspected himself, he saw that the bruises were all faded to the angry yellowed brown and the wounds had healed over thanks to the ambrosia. His lower arm bore a complete scar-shiny section like an arm band. The strap may as well be holding him chained to those horrible nightmare worthy memories. He pulled on a hoodie to cover it, and went back outside to wait for Percy.

Camp activities had completely ceased in the dazed chaos. Everyone was just too pissy with one another to be manageable. The sun seemed to be mocking them as it slid towards the horizon for rest – Apollo was going to get himself lynched by a mob of exhausted campers. In the soon to be failing light, found the spot where he and Percy had sat together the morning he and Annabeth broke up.

Gods, it seemed forever ago.

Without campers in it all day, the lake was eerily still and the edge of the water barely moved. Nico scooted closer until he could put his hand in and gently swirled it as he thought.

Hypnos, god of sleep, had to be somehow behind this. That rock he had swallowed earlier only felt heavier as he dimly heard the whines and complaints of the poor campers somewhere back in the main compound. There would probably have been more fights if people had the energy for it.

He watched a few nymphs dart through the trees, carrying a few precious saplings and fearfully glancing back towards the cabins. Pissy, sleep-deprived campers scared everyone apparently. The trees reminded Nico of Persephone, and that reminded him that summer was ending, and Percy would be going back to school, and it'd be forever before Nico saw him aga-

Nico could hear the click right in his own head as the gears engaged. Persephone's words came back to him in a dark creep of foreboding.

What happened to Hypnos?

Suddenly, the whole situation at camp took a dark and ugly twist in Nico's brain. This whole sleepless mess wasn't Hypnos somehow playing a trick or childishly trying to get back at him personally.

Nico got to his feet unsteadily. His father had done something to Hypnos – had punished him. More than just the 'berating' Thanatos had thought he would get. Something big enough to stop everyone from sleeping.

This was his fault.

Nico had to go speak to his father. He had to figure out what he did and set this all straight so the camp wouldn't end up in open mutiny and bloodshed. Di immortales, this could be affecting more than the _camp_.

Some sort of guilt-monster latched on to Nico's leg and wouldn't let go.

As he slipped into the shadows, Nico really hoped Persephone wasn't…'taking care' of his father at the moment. He really, really hoped. And he needed another tub-full of brain bleach.

The image would have been permanently burned into his brain…if he didn't suddenly get clotheslined.

One of these days, Nico swore to himself in his first coherent thought, he would land on his feet twice in a row after shadow-traveling. At the moment, he would be happy if he could get his nose to stop bleeding and his throat to relax so he could breathe again.

"You just can't catch a break, can you?" the voice was semi-familiar, and if he could breathe Nico would place it. His hands seized at his throat as he coughed and his breath came out in ragged wheezes. "Come on." Nico was pulled into a sitting position up from what felt like sand and his back whacked hard. His vision blurred and hurt his head while blood dripped down his face and he gagged.

"Here, drink this." A bottle pressed to his mouth, and Nico felt the burn of ambrosia. The heat seared his throat, burning it clear. He shoved it away to gasp for air.

"Mortals are just too easily injured," came as a sigh, and Nico heard someone shuffling about in sand and sitting next to him.

Nico risked cracking his eyes open, but they watered as he coughed. He could only see a blurred mass of blinding lights ahead of him. He hoped he hadn't hit his head again – another concussion was the last thing he needed. His mind finally connected the dots.

"Thana-" he broke off coughing.

"Yep. You might want to lay off shadow travel until you're a little stronger, kid. You're not to Los Angeles yet."

Nico wiped at his nose with his sleeve and tried to steady his breathing. Gods, he felt pathetic. He probably shouldn't have attempted a second shadow travel so closely together.

"Here, drink some more."

Nico had the sense of mind to push it away. Any more would probably cause him to burn alive. "Too much already," he made out in a weak voice.

"Then try eating this." Something pressed into his hand.

Nico wearily obeyed. "How far am I?" he asked around the first bite, his throat still raw.

"Las Vegas."

"What are you doing here?" The food tasted good on his tongue, and Nico wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. Since Percy's?

"It's lonely without my brother in our cave."

Back to Hypnos again. Why did Nico's life currently have to revolve around that piece of dirt?

"Look, nobody at camp is sleeping and it's causing a riot. Morpheus is going to help for now, but Hypnos needs to take over his job again." Nico still felt weak. Shadow-travel was draining on its own, and falling out of it painful. "What is your brother doing?"

"That taste alright?"

"Yeah, actually it's kind of famil-" The words dried in his rasped throat when he looked and stared in horror at the half-eaten piece of hell in his hand. "This is…"

"A lotus blossom. From the Lotus Hotel and Casino. You probably know them well."

Nico spat, desperately trying to get the taste from his mouth. "What the hell, Thanatos!"

Thanatos' voice suddenly became dark as he yanked on Nico's shirt and pulled him in close. Nico felt his own knife pressed against his gut as Thanatos hissed, "Do you know what your father did to my brother?" The darkness radiating in Thanatos' voice made Nico's mind flashed to when he first met Hypnos and Thanatos, and the threatening Thanatos he had first known. Why did Nico ever think of him as an ally? "He threw him in _Tartarus_."

"I didn't-" Shit. His mind was slurring together – the lotus blossom was taking effect. "Just get him back-"

"I'm the god of death, you pathetic demigod. But only one with power of the Underworld can move through the depths of it." The knife pressed harder. "So killing you wouldn't be a punishment at all."

"Why-" Nico gasped out as he tried grasping at the memories moving like liquid together into a colored, bright mess of lights.

"Your father put my brother in hell." Thanatos' mouth twisted into a wicked smile. "So I'm putting you in yours."

The memory was already blurring, but the brightly lit sign behind him became painfully clear. "No," he whispered. The vacant days passing in a mindless haze – when nothing mattered, no memories at all and he didn't care – the constant empty feeling and being okay with it – "No!"

Thanatos pulled on his arm, easily lifting the dark haired boy as if he were a newborn kitten and slung Nico across his shoulders. "No! Put me down!" Thanatos carrying him through the bright sign confused him more, his memory already swirling and slipping away from him – camp, Bianca, his father - "No! Percy!" He couldn't forget again – he wouldn't lose his memory again - "_Percy_!"

The last thought he had was Percy, cursing at red and blue lights, before they swallowed Percy's face.

Then the lights drowned out everything.

_To Be Continued_


	26. Chapter 24

_Merry Belated Christmas everyone! ...and other holidays that I just blatantly and stupidly ignored. Whoops. No offense meant.  
_

_Okay, there was supposed to be about a chapter or two's worth of story here, but honestly, nothing happened. So I deleted it from the storyline. And rather than go back and fix it to adjust for the gap, I just kept going because really... It would have taken so long and required you all to re-read the last few chapters, and I know you all want to get to the end already. So sorry for the slightly obvious storyline jump. Deal with it._

_**PriestessofNox**: We haven't discussed where the webcomic will be yet, probably on deviantart (again, username Colt-kun for more details) or smackjeeves._  
_**Cedarleaf:** ...whichever explanation makes the most sense to you as a reader. Personally, I was thinking a little too literally of Camp Half-Blood to the Los Angeles entrance. Uh, whoops. And thank you for the birthday/xmas wishes._  
_**Lazuli:** I suppose an Indiana Jones reference coming from me is just as obvious as a Doctor Who one..._  
_**NewEclipse:** I love your list, eight made me die laughing. Ten, Rachel IS a giant flying fish. That likes music. ...if you don't get it don't try too hard because it's an obscure Doctor Who joke and I'm dead tired._  
_curledruler: I had to look up fridge logic to see if that was an insult or a compliment and felt like a dork doing so. But I think I use it far too often._  
_**FantasyDweller13:** it's greek mythology, technically anything is far-fetched._  
_**Mission to Marzipan:** ...I had no idea there was a difference. My education once again fails me. Throughout this chapter I was so much more aware and I tried to use it properly. See, this is why I should really get an editor. And um, I'm glad you love my brain. It needs more attention or the braincells will die of loneliness._  
_**Bragi151:** I honestly considered your ending instead of mine for a bit because it would just end the story (finally), then decided to continue because I've got my heart set on what happens next. Although that may be an alternative ending employed at a later date..._  
_**RevesCasses: **Wow, your first P/N story? really? One where NOTHING HAPPENS between them *checks* 24 chapters later? I'm sorry. But thanks for the review, better late than never... except in the case of the Titanic - and my birthday is the day before yours. So happy birthday back to you!_  
_**Like-a-Ghozt-etc: **I may have to write the "Talk" scenes as separate extras, just because you mentioned it. So you'll be to blame for that._  
_**To the one who didn't review and you know who you are because you have a thing for leather jackets: **now that I've embarrassed you (and I know you actually read this), thank you for being an inspiration to me even when you don't know it, being willing to listen to me rant on, and for standing beside me even though you're rolling your eyes. A lot._  
_**RosaEldi:** Please don't kill me._

_Also, thank you to everyone who reads and doubly for the reviewers for over **50,000** hits! As a sort of present, another mini-short like the previous ones (titled something with sponsor in it) is offered to the 366th reviewer. Same rules apply: __It can be canon to Break Myself (Including a hypothetical post-Break Myself or pre-) or the books. It must remain below NC-17 to comply with FFN's rules.__ Enjoy, mates!  
_

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

And Nico thought ADHD was bad.

At least with ADHD, he was _aware_ of what went on around him. Just everything got the same priority in his mind. The person speaking to him was just as important as the uneven drip of water or the sniffling of a runny nose somewhere behind him, as well as the reflective glare in the distance and the fact that his sock was twisted at his toes. All annoying, but unignorable. His attention was at all places at all times.

This was worse than that. This was just plain slipping away. He knew something important. Something _very_ important. But he couldn't remember what. The lights and the sweet, succulent smell weren't helping either.

It had struck him, while playing some first person shooter game with zombies because he had thought the undead didn't really look like that, and he remembered he had already forgotten the same thing half a million times. By the time he remembered that, and found his feet moving away from the game to try and find the exit, he had forgotten what he had remembered that was so important. Desperately important. Something that tugged so hard at his heart he felt physically ill.

Then it would pass, leaving him uneasy and unsettled without even remembering why. Maddening wasn't even close.

"Are you alright, Mr. Angelo?"

The host's voice brought Nico back to himself, standing a few steps away from the arcade system with the gun still swinging from where he had suddenly dropped it. It's _di Angelo_, he wanted to correct, but a quiet inner voice told him better than to draw attention to himself. He knew the half perplexed, half frustrated look on his face over his already half-forgotten dream memory was far more than enough to cause suspicion. "It's nothing," he lied, even as the memory of forgetting started to slip away into the hazy lights and the smell that made him feel light-headed and spacey.

"Are you feeling alright?"

No, he wasn't. He felt sick to his stomach.

"I'm fine. I just got bored with that game." The lie was slipping into reality amid the smell and lights.

"I apologize that it didn't hold your interest. Another lotus blossom?"

Nico took the offered floral piece and the host smiled and stepped away as he put it to his mouth.

Nico's addled ADHD brain sluggishly pointed out the most hideous shade of orange amid the crowd in front of him.

Nico he felt the jerk in his chest again. He knew that orange. He knew that orange! He had forgotten – he had forgotten to _remember_ –

His had was struck from behind, forcing him to drop the lotus blossom. His nose suddenly flooded with sea-salt and summer-sun sweat, and it jolted him awake as all the lights came into a brilliant focus and Nico could see clearly.

"_Percy_!"

The name slipped from his mouth before he was forcibly turned to face the green-eyed boy, in jeans and his camp shirt and a leather jacket with… a rope around his waist trailing off between tables. But Nico was immediately drunk on Percy's smell and his eyes as they crinkled with a smile that was hidden behind a mask. "Percy, what are you doing here?" Nico demanded.

"I could ask you," Percy wrestled the mask away from his mouth as he spoke, "The same question!"

His memory was leaking back, and none of it too pleasant. "Long story," Nico said weakly.

"I figured." Percy eyed a passing hostess. "We have a lot, _a lot,_ to talk about – but later." Percy grabbed the metal serving tray from the hostess that was loaded with lotus blossoms. "What are you doing?" Nico demanded, seeing the security already descending on them. Percy thankfully dumped the tray on the ground.

"Being a big damn hero," Percy quipped with a quirky grin, stepping onto the serving trap before suddenly wrapping the end of the rope from his waist around Nico's and tying it quickly.

"What in Hades-" Nico started to exclaim, but security was descending on the boys. The hostess grabbed at Nico's arm and he tried to bat her off instinctively.

"Hold on," was the only warning Percy gave, his arm suddenly seizing around Nico's middle, pulling Nico from the hostess' grip and off his feet completely, then the rope snapped tight.

The next few seconds blurred. Nico's breath jerked from his lungs in a gasp and his hands clutched at the leather jacket Percy wore as they were suddenly jolted across the floor, Percy's shield the only deflection from people and tables that they collided into and bounced off. Cards and chips flew around them like a dustcloud as they smashed past what wouldn't bounce off Percy's shield and move. Despite the grunts from Percy and the screams of the people around them as they were pulled mercilessly through the casino lobby, Percy never released his deathgrip on Nico. Then they went around the revolving door twice, cold air making Nico's skin seize up all at once as they burst outside and careened down the sidewalk.

"Shit!" Nico heard Percy screech at the sudden sight of traffic, and only saw the flash of RipTide before the rope was severed and they spilled to the concrete none-too-gently, tumbling around each other like rag dolls tied together until the rope snapped, a tangle of elbows and knees and breathless gasps for air. The poor metal serving tray slid to a stop against the side of a hotel a few feet away.

Nico was teetering somewhere between throwing up and passing out as he lay on his back on the sidewalk. "Nico?" he heard Percy grunting and rolling over, right onto Nico's side with one hand pressed to Nico's thundering chest. "Nico, you okay? Nico!"

"I'm gonna be sick," Nico groaned out. The desperation on Percy's face faded with a chuckle and he slumped over.

"Hey, I have had much messier falls from your shadow travel," Percy quipped breathlessly. Nico had to give a short cough of a laugh at that. People passing by on the sidewalk did some interesting craning of their necks to see as they passed right on by. Nico was kind of interested in what the Mist was making them see, if masking them at all.

Once the world decided which way was up and Nico didn't feel like he was going to lose his stomach contents by trying to move, he realized that Percy had more or less collapsed on top of him, one hand fisted in Nico's – well, technically, still Percy's – shirt.

"Percy?" Nico asked tentatively.

"Shut up." Percy's tone was a little too terse, his face turned away from Nico's while pressed in crook of Nico's shoulder. "Just… give me a minute."

Trying to shield them both and hang on to Nico during their insane drag through the Lotus Hotel and Casino's lobby must have taken quite a toll on Percy. Sure, he couldn't get wounded technically, but apparently he could still get plenty sore.

Nico was starting to shiver on the freezing sidewalk, Percy's body the only heat source. "How did you find me in there?" Nico asked the next natural question on his list.

"Empathy link. Only just realized it. Used to have one with Grover, before the whole Pan business."

"An empathy link?" Nico found himself looking down at the sight of Percy sprawled across him, his dark hair close enough to tickle Nico's chin. Gods, Nico wanted to remember this moment. Store it away, and pull it out and hug it to him close like a blanket when he got cold or scared.

"Had it a few months with you. Since summer."

"Since _summer_?" Nico parroted in shock.

"It's December, Nico." Annabeth's voice squashed the bubbly feeling building in Nico's chest instantly. He craned his neck upward to see her crouching a few feet away from the both of them, car keys dangling in her hand and a smirk on her face.

Percy shoved himself up onto his hands and off Nico's chest, but still hovering over Nico. "How long have you been there?" Percy demanded. Nico felt awkward and suddenly just wanted to slip away. He mentally smacked himself as he thought that. Percy and Annabeth had just barely found him.

He missed Annabeth's reply, but caught the warning that they should get moving in case the Lotus eaters bothered to leave their lair and come after them. Percy looked down at Nico.

"Can you move?"

Nico felt annoyed by the question – especially in front of Annabeth. "Of course," he grunted, ignoring Percy's offered hand for help and getting to his feet himself. Unfortunately, his body decided it wasn't quite as ready to get up as he was, and the world tilted for a second.

Then Percy was there and he had an arm around Nico's waist

"Idiot," Percy murmured, and the thick emotion in his voice screwed with Nico's sense of balance and the emotions raging inside him in a whole different way. There was a strange moment, and then his other arm came around Nico as well, a slow slide like he was trying not to. The world had stopped tilting, but Percy was holding him in a way that wasn't about support at all. "Gods, I thought I'd never find you again," Percy mumbled.

The moment shattered when Annabeth announced, "Okay guys, let's _go_. We've caused a big enough scene here." Some pedestrians were slowing a little too much for Nico's liking.

Percy hesitated, then released Nico slowly. "You okay?"

" 'M fine," Nico made out.

"Your face is red."

Nico tried to make up an excuse, before what Percy was wearing registered. "Is that my bomber jacket?"

"Okay, moving _now_ boys." Annabeth put a hand on both of their shoulders and pushed them towards the street where Percy's stepfather's car waited.

It was only after they got in the car and Percy had peeled out, putting the lights of Vegas barely behind them did Nico get the story. Nico had been missing for _months._ Yes, everyone at camp was getting some sleep, uneasily, and the mortals were explaining it away with something due to seasonal depression and inversion caused by something in the atmosphere. No, nobody knew what happened to Hypnos – a statement that caused Nico's stomach to sink some more with dread – and while Morpheus was grudgingly helping, nobody counted on his help for much longer.

"There's been some really whacked-out dreams," Percy confessed, glancing at Nico sitting in the passenger seat. Nico sat with his arms crossed over each other as he listened to them explain the whole mess. The whole story of how Percy and Annabeth were working together sat wrong with him. As Annabeth explained Percy threatening to tear Charon a new one if he didn't let him speak to Hades and Annabeth convincing him to stop, Nico felt ungrateful, because they were desperately trying to find him, but still.

"I'm sorry Nico," Percy apologized, interrupting Nico's thoughts while shifting the steering wheel to one hand and undoing his seatbelt, "You must be freezing."

"But Percy finally figured out his dreams from what was an empathy link to you–" Annabeth continued while leaning on the front seat, and earned a cautious hiss from Percy that she ignored as he struggled out of one sleeve of Nico's bomber jacket. "And we went in with my brilliant plan to rip you both out as fast as possible before either of you got side-tracked." She finished with a triumphant flourish as Percy finished wrestling out of Nico's jacket.

"A rope and a car was your brilliant plan?" Nico quipped, turning in his seat to look at her in the back. "We may need to redefine 'brilliant' for you–"

He saw her face lit up with bright headlights as it crumpled in horror and she screamed that turned into the hideous squealing of metal on metal.

_To Be Continued_


	27. Chapter 25

_So RosaEldi and I have been busting up a lot over planning the comic… Probably more than we should. But she's working on the first few pages and I will make sure to post when/where it's going up. Here's a comic preview: __**www .rosaeldi .deviantart .com /# /d36n8ji**  
In other news… school starts again on Monday and I was super excited for it… until I remember I didn't attend Hogwarts. Speaking of, I really want the Hogwarts lego set. So badly. Augh. I'm a pathetic nerd. Can't think of anything else other than ROSA, STOP READING OVER MY SHOULDER AS I TYPE.  
RosaEldi: "Stop typing where I can see you!"_

And if you're wondering where the bonus short is, _WhenDayMeetsDark got the 366th review and asked for a short that was canon to my other PercyxNico story, "Heat". You can read it over there. Oh, and I'm doing a one-shot off later that'll be posted here on FFN titled "And They Called It..."  
_

_NewEclipse: You must watch Doctor Who. I order it. …because I have some power over that.  
curledruler: Well then thank you. And I'm a bit of a cliff-hanger… what's a good word for 'whore'?  
Braigi151: Never having a break is rule 4 in their contract.  
Mission to Marzipan: Well I believe in 'dark alleying'. That anything can happen at anytime. …to anyone. And I'm sorry I haven't replied to your latest PM yet… been too busy to read it all through without losing my train of thought. Argh. And I'm still waiting on your writing prompt. I'm holding you to it.  
Soaha: Yeah, yeah it does. And to keep your seatbelt on.  
White-Lily-Blossom: Welcome to the story, and thanks mate! I like writing Annabeth this way – it bothers me when people write her as cruel or mean just to break her up from Percy to pair with Nico.  
Daughter of Poseidon33: Rambling always turns out hilarious. And yeah… Nico is kind of my punching bag. Wait until you see what RosaEldi does to him in the /comic/. I'm just masochistic. She's sadistic. It works.  
Malory Hex: My brain has much useless information like how to get through Jak and Daxter in a few hours, or the evolutionary charts of the original 150 pokemon. So… you can have it because I don't think I employ it properly anyways. Just give it plenty of Dr Pepper.  
_

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

Nico knew he was dreaming, because he was fairly certain there wasn't snow in Las Vegas. At first, he wondered why a guy interested in another guy would be dreaming of an all-girl's school, until he saw the red-hair like a flag in the middle of the sea of school uniforms. She was talking to a black-haired girl, before turning abruptly to look directly back at him with her water-stirred eyes and spoke. _Nico di Angelo_.

"_Nico_!"

He groaned gutturally at the horrendous buzzing pain in his head. Nico could feel the life draining away all around him, like someone was trying to rip his heart out through his gut piece by piece.

"Oh thank the gods, Nico! Nico, can you hear me?"

"Annabeth?" Nico gagged around the pain in his chest and forced himself to come to. The window in front of him was so spider-cracked he could barely see the mess of wrecked cars all around theirs, which resembled nothing less than a heap of twisted scrap metal. Three demigods in something so… _mortal_ as a car crash seemed hilarious.

"Are you okay?" Annabeth's voice came from outside the car. She had apparently squirmed free already. Nico could barely tell that he himself wasn't gravely injured amid the pain and pull of the dying around him, save some superficial wounds and a bruise from the seatbelt that would hurt like hell later.

"I'm okay," he grunted out, before turning to Percy. The airbag had deployed and Nico could only see Percy's side. Nico reached to grasp Percy's arm to get his attention. "Hey, Perc-"

He felt like he had been sucker-punched in the gut. One of the nagging pulls came forward bluntly, a sharp stabbing pain radiating throughout his torso. This wasn't just a gift of the son of Hades – this was empathy.

"_Percy_!"

"Percy? What's wrong?" Annabeth demanded, but her voice seemed a million miles away as Nico clawed at his seatbelt, getting it to release before his hands scrambled for anything sharp, slicing his fingers as he grasped something – he didn't care what – and punctured the airbag. It deflated in a cloud of dust, and Nico barely caught Percy's head before it fell forward and hit the steering wheel.

"Percy! Percy!"

There only came a rattled gasp as a response. Nico pulled Percy to him across the seat, and the skin contact made the pain so much sharper and clearer.

"What's wrong with him? Nico!" Annabeth was yelling from the passenger side door, so close to Nico's head his ears rang but he could barely feel it through Percy's pain. The car lurched as she wrenched his door open behind him.

"Nico?" Percy gasped through bloodless lips, his breath shaky against Nico's throat as his head cradled against Nico's shoulder. Nico's blood-slick hand moved to the source of the pain he felt from Percy, and immediately recognized the knife of Stygian Iron in the small of Percy's back. Percy muffled a groan into Nico's skin.

"Shit, Percy– Percy, just… just–" He grasped for anything to say, his mouth wasn't working, "H-hold on! Percy-"

Percy's fingers dug into his skin as tightly as Nico held to Percy. "S'at bad, is it?" Percy joked so weakly, as Nico felt Percy's life slipping away as if a flood in his heart and Nico almost wept openly.

"Water," Percy groaned.

Annabeth turned frantically to the backseat. "I have a waterbottle somewhere–"

The desperate need stemming from the mortal wound in Achille's cursed spot flowed into Nico. "No, Annabeth, he needs _water._" Annabeth just gave him a look. "So he can _heal_ himself! Help me get him out of the car!"

Nico wasn't strong enough to hold Percy up on his own, and the blood was so slick down Percy's back he struggled for a decent hold. But even as his arms trembled, he wasn't going to drop Percy. He simply wasn't. Annabeth took Percy's other side, lifting some of the weight and they stumbled from the car, straining to get a decent distance away. There were police sirens and flashing lights, people talking and some screaming in pain, and Nico was so numb to it all he felt like he was back in the Lotus Hotel and Casino. All that mattered right now was Percy.

"Here," Nico grunted out a few yards from the road, and Percy only hissed as they lowered him to the ground on his side. Gods, all Nico could see was Percy's pale face clenched in pain and the blood on his hands. He hit his knees, not caring at this point what any mortals saw – they were too busy and the Mist would hide this – and buried his hands into the loose top sand until he hit the hard-packed part.

"Nico?" Annabeth's voice begged of desperation as she supported Percy to keep him from falling over and driving the knife in deeper.

The ground was so dry, so devoid of life in the middle of the desert… Nico felt a moment of panic. "Please please please…" the words barely came out in his breathless pants before he felt where the dead particles in the soil met dampness. Nico knew they would damn well obey, forcing his will as the ground trembled and cracked. "_Please_!"

Annabeth screeched as the three of them suddenly collapsed into a depression in the ground, like an eye in the middle of the storm for a sinkhole. The sand beneath them turned muddy, then thinned to murky water. As it filled, soaking Nico's jeans and shoes, it felt like a dam was building against Percy's draining soul. He felt it, throughout his power and their link strongly it felt almost literal.

"You dug us a well." Nico all but ignored Annabeth's voice of awe as he splashed through the few inches to Percy. "That's brilliant, Nico." Nico couldn't help but grab at Percy, as if holding on to him physically would keep him alive. "Will he recover?" Annabeth asked, straining for information.

"No," Nico knew the answer before thinking about it. The flow had be slowed, but not stopped. "He's dying." He dribbled water from his hand across Percy's hair, and Percy stirred a little, his hand searching through the water until it caught numbly around Nico's wrist.

"But you've bought time," Annabeth urged.

"Not much," Nico felt so utterly hopeless, so much like the lost little kid he was, his fingers clenching and unclenching their hold on Percy.

Annabeth's one-handed shove against his arm made him detract his eyes from Percy, and she glared at him. "You bought him more time than I could. This is your area of expertise, Death the Kid. Tell me what you know, and we will save him."

Words failed him. He could only gulp back the panic and pain threatening to drown him as his hand moved to run along Percy's face, still strained as he breathed shallowly. Percy opened his eyes, and smiled weakly at him, his grip on Nico shifting. "Th' gods must r'lly not want us tu' talk," he whispered.

"Shut up," Nico ordered shakily. "Just… don't talk. Don't… Don't…!"

"Piece'ov car?" Percy asked anyways.

"No, it's my…" Nico's eyes had gone to the knife, his knife, remembering the last time he had seen it. And suddenly, he knew what had happened.

"Thanatos."

Both Annabeth and Percy looked confused. Well… in Percy's case, more confused. Nico had to remember to fix his mouth brake at _some_ point.

"Stay here," Nico ordered, moving to get up. "Just… just give me some time." Percy didn't let go of Nico's wrist when he started to pull away.

"Don't," Percy breathed, his eyes wide with something akin to fear.

"Don't worry," Nico tried to assure, and hoped his voice didn't sound as shaky as it felt. "I'm not-I'm not going to let you…"

"Don't go." Nico stared at Percy, only vaguely aware of Annabeth awkwardly trying not to be there. "Ev… every time I lose y –…" It ended in a sharp hiss of pain and Percy squeezed his eyes shut.

Nico knew there was no time. He wrenched his arm free. Percy's eyes snapped open, and when he tried to sluggishly lunge for Nico again, Annabeth held him still. "I'm sorry," Nico whispered, feeling a very different kind of wrench in his gut at the look on Percy's face.

He turned and scrambled up the bank of the depression he had made. "Nico, where _are_ you going?" Annabeth asked.

"Going to go punch someone," Nico grunted, his mouth dry as he tried to ignore the pain rising through his chest.

Mud and dirt slicked his shirt and jeans before he pulled himself up. He stared at the mess of cars smashed together, the flashing lights, and the general chaos. It only forced him to set his determination. On an impulse, he went back to the abandoned car, the seat still slick with Percy's cooled blood, and dug out his bomber jacket. He could smell the sea-salt of Percy soaked into the fur collar. Suddenly, all the fear in his chest turned to sheer anger. This wasn't just him getting kicked around anymore – this was Percy involved now.

Nico turned and yelled to the desert. "_Thanatos!_ _Get your ass out here!"_

**To Be Continued…**

RosaEldi: NO, REALLY?  
Colt: I could end it right there.  
RosaEldi_: I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP._


	28. Chapter 26

_Sorry this took so long to update, mates. This chapter was a lot harder to write semi-decently than I thought it would be. And the usual reasons. You know life has gotten weirder when you start using tvtropes to refer to your own fanfiction to make sure you're not using obvious clichés. Guh. Anyways._

_For those who haven't been privy to the inside loop, yes, the comic version of Break Myself is underway. Its home is currently on smackjeeves dot com under 'Break Myself' cause we were that creative and that poor. We put a ton of time and love into the comic mates, and it will contain parts of the story NOT in this written version - including some of Percy's side.  
_

Link –** www. breakmyself .smackjeeves .com**

**ByTheLetterK** - I don't know if it's a good thing to say I'm proud to have converted another to the slash community, but welcome aboard.  
**valkyriecain2110** - ...how is it. That in 24 chapters. NO ONE pointed this out before. Or the OTHER major reference mistake I made, which I noticed myself before anyone else. Well, I'm too lazy to fix them. So ha.  
**New Eclipse, TheFrenchMouse, Crazy Ninja Lover, Lazuli, **- YES, SOUL EATER REFERENCE. There's been Doctor Who, Kingdom Hearts, World Ends With You, Firefly, and various other references flying about, I felt I had to stick one from my current favorite anime in. Strangely, no one caught the Firefly one. Or at least no one's commented on it.  
**curledruler** - Oh, Poseidon isn't handling it well at all. But that's not covered in this story - wait for the comic P: You'll see more of Percy's side of the story there.  
**Bragi151** - ...no speculating on the possible sequel plot bunnies. ALL OF YOU, STOP PREDICTING PLOT BUNNIES!  
**Blackmagiclily** - thanks mate, I'm rather proud of awkward-parent!Hades.  
**Orochi-Ne **- thank you - third wheels are always awkward. Even if they don't know it's a third wheel yet... except for, y'know, the third wheel. Uh.  
**to the flamer** - if you're complaining several chapters into a PLAINLY stated boy/boy love story, then I have a remedy for you. _Either stop reading, or face the truth: you like it, come out of the closet, take a chill pill, and never homophobicly comment again._ It just shows how stupid you are.

_And because you reviewers asked (and some begged) for it, there will be an extra bonus chapter that will contain a lemon. But to comply with 's standard, you will have to message me AFTER THE FINAL CHAPTER POST for the bonus chapter. If you don't have an FFN account, I apologize._

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

It didn't take long. Nico only felt the slight surge of the souls around him, as if a black hole opened up right beside him and the dying were sucked in. He whipped around, facing the god who hadn't changed at all leaning casually against the car they had bailed from. The pull of the dead tugged at him like a receding tide, and somewhere in there was _Percy's_.

And it was all this asshole's fault.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Nico spat. Thanatos' face didn't even twitch as Nico ranted on. "You caused this whole accident, didn't you? How did you know about Percy's Achille's Heel?"

"I'm the god of death, brat," Thanatos said neutrally. "If anyone knows how to kill, it would be me."

"So you're fine with just standing by, watching shit play out when Hypnos –" Nico's mind stuttered over the words, " – When he did crap and then when he tortured Percy and then you just… just expected him to be punished and when he is by going where he deserves you go apeshi –"

Nico barely saw the backhand fly, ducking out of the way in time.

"You don't know anything, you mortal," Thanatos spat, his face etched in anger. "You wouldn't comprehend what my brother means to me."

"I'll get Hypnos back!"

Even Thanatos quirked an eyebrow at that. "How." His tone belayed no question, as if mocking Nico's statement.

"You said it yourself. Only someone with the power of the Underworld can move through its depths." Nico's resolve hardened. He could do it – he had to do it. There was no other choice. He wasn't going to let Percy _die._ "I'll save Hypnos, if you spare Percy's life."

"Why do all mortals think things can be settled with a trade?" Thanatos scoffed. "There is no equality between a god's life and a _mortal's_."

"Percy's is!" Nico felt hyper aware of himself amid the whirlpool of the dead. He took mental stock of himself from Thantos' eyes; dirty and covered in still-wet blood, messy hair and his face – both pained and determined. He squared his jaw and stoicly repeated his bargain. "I. Will save. Hypnos. So spare _Percy_."

Thanatos just looked at him, analyzing him. Nico hoped to Olympus and back that his fear and desperation weren't as apparent as they felt. He may not be certain of his age, but Nico definitely felt like a small child who had seen too many years.

"Fine," Thanatos finally declared, leaning back against the car.

"Swear it on the River Styx," Nico demanded, even as he felt the annoying lurking idea that somewhere, someone was going to call him stupid several times for this.

The corner of Thanatos' mouth twitched. "I swear, on the River Styx, that Percy Jackson will live if Nico di Angelo goes to Tartarus and delivers Hypnos from its depths."

Nico felt a strange twinge he hadn't experienced before as Thanatos sealed his oath. No going back now… as if that had ever been an option.

Nico opened a shadow portal behind him, stepping backwards because he refused to turn his back to that sly, sick smirk stealing across Thanatos' face. "Percy's going to live," Nico stated as the portal swallowed him. Nico swore Thanatos' smirk only grew deeper before he was whisked away to the Underworld.

He saw the grasp reaching for him in the portal, narrowly avoiding it in a split second before he was nabbed. He existed out the other end, landing successfully on his feet, before he recognized the surge in his father's power. But he didn't have time to dwell on that before he felt the tugging of Tartarus, a tide at his feet threatening to overpower him.

Nico cautiously pushed the long sleeves of his bomber jacket to his elbows and lowered to his backend. He braced himself with his sneakers and hands before letting the current pull him, sliding towards the big damn dark hole with a set brow and grit teeth.

The sliding turned to falling, and he crashed into a puddle of sick. In that instant, Nico knew - a mortal wasn't meant for Tartarus.

He screamed as old injuries returned, his flesh ripping open on its own. Nico saw the band of scar tissue around his arm go slick and red before his eyes screwed shut in grimaces against pain. This was going to be very painful, very quickly. He forced himself to open his eyes, knowing he had a few precious minutes before the pain would overtake him.

Against his luck, he couldn't distinguish a damn thing. Slippery and sticky and dark and cold, a wet oil painting of all the misery and torment that existed in the world. It crushed in around him, suffocating him, as he struggled to somehow move forward in a place of no direction. The red of his blood seemed almost cherry against the darkness before it faded to black as well.

Nico tried to focus, focus his energy in one direction – trying to get a pinpoint on Hypnos with the power that was his and his alone, even as his legs went weak and shaky and he felt blood trickle down them. He wanted to sink to his knees as he felt the terror overtake him again.

He almost did fall, as other emotions surged forward. Every lonely day, every dark night, every miserable moment surfaced. The loss of Percy's love without ever possessing it, his father's disappointment, Bianca's death, the emptiness of the casino…

Then his mind split.

He saw his mother die, from the eyes of a child. He saw memories that weren't his and yet they _were_… childishly simple memories stuck together in the ball of pure hurt. It was so painful that he didn't even have these memories at night to reflect upon. He was on the verge of collapsing under their excruciating onslaught.

That was the instant he felt a sticky hand on his cheek and realized he was sobbing.

"Hello, my dark angel," came a weak, pain-thinned child's voice.

All the fear and hurt balled in Nico's stomach. For a moment, everything became painstakingly clear as the pain turned to rage. The fury concentrated his thoughts, and momentarily cleared him of the agony. Nico saw Tartarus for what it was, a hell-hole in his own mind, and saw the child form Hypnos in front of him – daring to touch him. The children of Hades had problems holding on to grudges, did they? Anger issues?

Nico punched Hypnos in the face.

"Shut _up_," Nico spat. He could taste blood. He grasped Hypnos' arm – nearly crying out himself but no, no he had to focus. Turn the pain to anger, use the anger to get through.

Hypnos was hurt – somehow. Weakened, Nico thought. The god was in a form that seemed only a few years old. He didn't move as Nico pulled him onto his back, burying his face into the fur of Nico's bomber jacket. Nico could barely move. Everything was so heavy, so pressing – it would be easier to sink down and give up.

The tittering part of Nico's brain that wasn't proverbially coughing blood sardonically commented on how much harder it was to get _out_ of a hell hole. It hurt so much. Why was he doing this again?

Percy.

Right. Percy. Percy. He had to save Percy. No other option, no 'do or do not', no 'try'. An absolute. Nico collected his straying thoughts around that one focal point. Percy. Percy was the cool, sweet water thought his mind fled to from the flames.

Fire and brimstone didn't exist in the Underworld, not literally. But it burned, burned in a way Nico hadn't known before – from the inside out. Is this how Bianca felt in her final moments?

That thought almost consumed all thoughts of Percy, to the point Nico almost didn't realize the pull had released. He was out – he was free.

Nico finally buckled, Hypnos rolling off his shoulders and falling next to him. For a moment, curled around himself in the waste of the Underworld, Hypnos looked like nothing more than another lost child. Nico felt a surge of pity. It was easy to forget now that this child before him was the same jerk who caused all of this suffering.

Nico couldn't even shift his eyes when he felt someone approaching. He only saw Thanatos crouching beside Hypnos, and Hypnos' arms painfully encircling his brother's neck. Then Nico saw it, plain as day on Thanatos' usually guarded face, as the god tenderly embraced and lifted Hypnos.

He wanted to speak, perversely wanted to apologize for taking Thanatos' love away from him… But nothing moved. His body felt strangely distant and detached, rather like it wasn't his anymore.

_So this is what it's like to die_, Nico thought to himself. It felt almost pleasant – like the pain had been a wave crashing against the rocks, dashing him to pieces, and now he was just trickling away. His mind was slipping, but not into a haze of lights and sweet smells or an empty darkness this time. Just… slipping. He pushed – grasping desperately one last time – towards the source of his empathy link with Percy. His consciousness barely brushed against it, contacting long enough to know that Thanatos had kept his promise.

Then everything was okay. Thanatos and Hypnos were gone, leaving Nico alone in the dark. But that was okay. If he had gone to Tartarus and brought back Hypnos, Percy would live - Percy would _live_. Nico wasn't even that cold now. Maybe he was dreaming again – just dreaming, and he'd wake up soon.

**To Be Concluded**


	29. Chapter 27

_****I know I said there would be only one more chapter. I totally lied. This chapter did not want to cooperate, at all, and too much was happening too fast. You can thank RosaEldi for this update, my boyfriend Aiden for inspiring part of it by taking care of me while I was sick, and the doctor who put me on some knock-me-on-my-butt pain killers._

_I want to write individual replies to reviews, but there's been so many... A huge, HUGE blanket thank you to everyone who reviewed! To all new readers, welcome, and to all the old readers who have been with me since the beginning... I'm so sorry._

_This chapter was written almost completely to "L'Amore" (or I think the English version is titled "Love is Here") by Sonohra.__****_

You're the only reason I wake up to face every day  
You're always here, love keeps you near -   


**Chapter Twenty Seven**

It was the butterfly beating against the edges of his consciousness, a faint irritation in an otherwise perfectly still quiet. He pulled away from it, annoyed.

_ – co… ico… Nic-… Nico!_

Then he remembered that _he_ was Nico. That jolted him a little closer to the faint fluttering. He woke up without having to open his eyes, surprised to find himself in his own room in his father's house.

"Wh…" his voice fell empty, not even echoing off the walls of the mostly-void room with an undisturbed bed.

The flutter came again, weaker. But he felt it all the same.

Walking took more effort than he wanted to admit, like he was completely numb all over. He must have been in a crap ton of pain if he couldn't feel anything at all.

He kept spacing out, floating in and out of his own head until he found himself behind his father as the god faced another Iris message. Nico's mouth brake had apparently decided to engage, because he couldn't bring himself to speak as he saw Rachel Elizabeth Dare in what looked like a cab, sitting and talking with a girl wearing paint-covered jeans.

Nico moved around to be in front of his Father, to face him. He wanted to ask if he had been trying to summon him. But Hades wouldn't even look at him, face drawn tight and gaze settled on the Iris message.

_Nico…_

Then his world tilted, like in a vacuum, all drawing to one source of warmth, like sunshine on the surf, that Nico recognized instantly.

Percy Jackson was there, standing in the middle of his father's throne room. He was there, and alive.

Percy was _there_.

Nico still couldn't speak, frozen motionless. His memory felt foggy, like he was dreaming still. But Percy closed the gap, moving to him and grasping Nico's shoulders tightly. The green-eyed boy gave him a weak smile.

"Perc-"

Nico felt cold all over as Percy abruptly pulled him into a rough hug. He couldn't feel it over the sudden, crazy fluttering he felt tip to tip. That butterfly feeling had turned to an electric buzzing. Nico was about to cry out from the sensation when Percy suddenly let go, and kept his gaze lowered as he pushed Nico away. Percy's lips moved without saying anything, and he walked away.

"Percy?" Nico asked, confused. He glanced back at his father, who still faced towards that stupid Iris message. He hadn't even acknowledged Percy's presence in the hall, like he had been expecting it to be there. Nico took it as good a dismissal as any, and moved to follow Percy before Hades could stop him.

"Percy!" Nico called, soundlessly sweeping after him.

Percy didn't stop, he kept walking forward. Nico swore he actually picked the pace up. Percy walked right out of Hades' fortress, and past the shades of the dead. A few turned now and then, glancing at Percy like he was a battery. But then they forgot he ever passed, and otherwise paid no attention to either of the boys as they moved through the crowded fields.

"Would you slow down?" Nico asked, feeling taxed. He had just come back from Tartarus, for-

He was struck still, still as the shades around him, as he remembered that. He had gone to the deepest pit of hell – literally. And all for Percy.

His mind snapped back to the task at hand at the thought of the other boy, and continued to follow him away from the fields, and to the cliffs surround the area of Hades' fortress. Without pausing to confer with Nico, Percy started climbing. Nico felt like all his limbs were dead weight, the fluttering sensation almost sickening now.

"Percy Jackson! Look at me!"

Percy just kept working his way up the steep cliff. Nico vaguely recalled one of the hidden backdoors around here, but how did Percy know about it?

"If you want to leave, I can just shadow travel us out," Nico grumbled, but his voice fell completely hollow.

Nico was certain he was still healing as each step felt heavier and heavier. He momentarily despised his dad for deciding to not let him leave, as the Underworld dragged and tugged at him from just inside his gut.

The fluttering turned to sharp stabs of pain, like creaking joints and the throbbing of a broken heart. Whatever numbed him was wearing off. Nico tripped as he remembered with each painful current how his skin seared and flesh broke apart in the hellhole of Tartarus. He couldn't contain the groan of pain at the thought.

"Percy-!"

Percy jerked and stilled, staring ahead with his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He was saying something, Nico could see his jaw working and his throat straining, but the thrumming in Nico's head drowned it out.

"You… contemptuous… git!" Nico ground out as he forced his feet to move again. "Turn and look at someone when you talk to them-!"

Percy kept moving, infuriatingly just out of Nico's reach, leading him on until the sunshine of the Upper World broke across Nico's skin.

Nico's eyes were suddenly watering as his legs gave out completely, Percy catching him before he hit the ground. "Nico! Nico Nico Nico…" His name came as a shaky prayer from Percy's lips as Percy wrapped his jacket around Nico's very cold and bare body.

Only when his heart pulsed did he remember how it felt when it stopped.

After that was…blurry. Nico slipped in and out of consciousness. His thoughts were broken by chunks of dreamless sleep. He half wondered if he would ever dream again. He roused long enough to find himself in Percy's arms, each time. He would try to speak, and Percy would clutch him closer. Then he'd be gone again into the endless abyss.

When Nico finally cracked open his dusty eyes, he saw orange. Camp Half Blood orange. …on him. He blearily blinked, and was about to get upset over wearing the thrice-damned shirt if he didn't rapidly notice the arm stretched across his chest, blocking the camp's full name – or the leg he just noticed was entangled with his. And the dark head of hair the arm was attached to.

Nico jerked, suddenly _very_ aware of where Percy's thigh was pressing. Percy barely stirred as he sleepily mumbled, "S'okay… I've got you… you're safe… S'okay baby…"

"_Baby_?" Nico choked out, his voice little more than a hoarse release of air. But it was enough to make Percy's eyes snap open. For an eerie moment, Percy's face and those beautiful, sea-green eyes took up the entire expanse of Nico's vision.

"Nico, you're awake!"

Then Percy was sitting up, and Nico thought he had imagined the jumbled limbs since they vanished so fast.

"Thank the gods, I was worried – I thought I hadn't done it right – Like you weren't all there-"

"Hadn't done what right?" Nico asked, but it came out in dry wheezes before he started coughing.

Percy helped prop Nico up against his side, reaching for the water left on every stand in the medical tent next to the ambrosia. Nico couldn't even lift his arms to hold the glass. He had nothing left – scraped completely hollow and taken for everything. Percy pressed the rim to his mouth, and had to remind Nico to drink slowly.

Three full glasses later, Nico finally turned away from the offer of another. Percy helped him lie back down in the cot and covered him with the blankets. Nico hadn't even realized he was shaking from exerting the energy to stay upright. Newborn kittens had more muscle strength than him at the moment.

"What do you remember?" Percy asked cautiously.

"I…" Nico started, and stopped. "I…" His brain was jumbled. Old memories, new memories, empty spots jammed next to recently filled ones. It was like he had four jigsaw puzzles and was trying to put them all together into one picture. "I had a stuffed rabbit," he suddenly blurted.

Percy had the gall to look… confused. "A stuffed rabbit?"

"I took it with me. Everywhere. Oswald." Nico felt enthralled by the sudden 'new' memory that was probably his oldest. "He was rare by then. I lost him in a park." Another memory cropped up. "There was a colored sign on the drinking fountain. Bianca switched the signs once. Mom laughed. She didn't believe in spanking and everyone thought she was crazy."

Nico's mouth brake had given up completely. He babbled, nearly incoherently, until his throat was dry. Percy helped him drink again, and he kept gibbering. It was like diarrhea of the mouth.

But each word brought the puzzle pieces together. The fuzzy feeling that had plagued Nico forever faded solidified slowly, and memories that had escaped him even recently were coming back into alignment.

Then he was exhausted. He couldn't even turn his head the next time Percy offered water. During all of it, Percy just leaned against the wall at the head of the cot and listened. He even clutched at Nico's hand during some of the painful memories.

"Nico," Percy started cautiously, "Are you okay?"

Nico couldn't help but twitch his mouth in a pathetic attempt at a smile in response to Percy's worried tone. "I feel raw," he whispered, shutting his really heavy eyes.

"Are you in pain at all?" Percy asked.

Nico paused to take inventory. For the first time in weeks, nothing hurt, not even the low-lying level pain of something healing. He was just exhausted, but it wasn't painful.

"Am I dead?" Nico attempted at a joke, his voice starting to drag and slur.

"_No_." Percy's reply was a little too quick, and too harsh. Nico wanted to ask what was wrong, but his mouth didn't want to move again. "Nico…"

Nico hummed lightly to show he was listening.

"Nico, we really need to talk. I…I have to tell you something."

"…kay…" he mumbled, but didn't hear anything after that.

_To Be Continued_


	30. A Final Word From our Sponsor's…Sponsor

_Hi there, this is RosaEldi. I am the artist for the Break Myself comic and, as it happens, Colt's sister. There have been some less-than-pleasant remarks regarding the extended hiatus for this story. Everything ranging from insults and cries for attention to full out verbal assault. This is unwelcome in the extreme. (Just fyi: this does not include the "please write more, you are killing me" vein.)_

_First off, no author, regardless of fame or fandom is required to write for your enjoyment. They write because they want to. They graciously choose to share their words with us. Don't make it a job._

_Secondly, my brother has/had an encompassing reason to not be writing. He had cancer. How do you know that this fic was unfinished due to lack of care? It could have all too easily not been finished because he was dead. You weren't there. You don't get to decide what is and is not a good enough reason to go on and off of hiatus for him. To those of you who disagree with me and want my brother to endlessly crank out fanfic for your amusement, I have two words for your ears:_

_FUCK YOU._

_Author's Note: My sister is awesome. And chemotherapy is a bitch._

_Thank you to all the reviewers and people who private messaged me encouragement and honest pleas for continuation. I have heard them, and felt horrible I couldn't write more. Yes, Break Myself will be finished when I find the inspiration and energy to write it again. There are multiple drafts on my computer, I'm trying to figure out how I want it to end now.  
_

**A Final Word From our Sponsor's…Sponsor**

She watched, heart clenching in her chest, as the black flag fluttered in the flames. Some campers had gathered, their orange shirts washed out in the bright fire. Some faces were unexpected and surprising, but one was missing.

She blinked back to herself, away from the flames. Back to dry and droll conversation, to the unfinished woven branches in her lap. Did they even notice? Did they even care?

She stood so swiftly, she almost overturned her chair. Her mother pulled from the conversation and looked to her, astonished. "Persephone, where are you going?" she demanded.

Persephone didn't bother to answer, just summoned her traveling cloak to her with a practiced ease. Demeter snatched it out of the air, her face glowering with rage.

"It is summer," she snapped, her voice low so as not to disturb their guests' droning words. Did they even notice her leaving, or were they ignoring her actions again? Repeating the lies spread about her 'predicament' and lamenting her 'fate'.

"I don't care, he needs me." Persephone seized the cloak woven from shadowy corners and hidden darkness, locking eyes with her mother. Yet again she finds herself cursing the thought of her mother ever being tormented by her loss and spitting out half the seeds. She flung the cloak around her shoulders. In it, she sheds the gentle guise of a goddess' simple daughter, and becomes a queen.

Her mother's face contorted in fury, and somewhere Persephone is sure the mortals will experience a horrible dry spell or furious hot winds, but she can't find it in her to care for them. As she dropped through the shadows, gliding back to her place in her throne, she only thinks of her husband.

When she pushed back the hood, she finds the matching throne vacant.

"Beloved?"

She knew where to go, although it pained her a little to admit it to herself. She hoped she would find him watching the fire as well, but knew he wouldn't be able to face it. And indeed, instead he was watching the dark haired girl as she spoke of some video game to her red-headed friend.

Persephone watched for a moment, sadness wrestling with roiling jealousy. She had told Nico the truth – sort of, a version of the truth anyways – but she still didn't have to like it. "Will you go to her again?"

Hades turned with a start, surprised. His face softened when he saw her, as it always did when they were alone. "Your mother will be furious," he commented as if there was no reason for the heart-rending grief she felt rolling off him in waves.

"Oh, she is," Persephone smiled a little maliciously, a trait learned from him, "But right now, I don't particularly care."

She took her place, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as it should be always. "Will you?" she pressed.

"No," his reply was firm. "I already killed her once. Let her have a happy life."

"Nico would have been proud to hear that."

"He will be," Hades replied firmly. Persephone frowned.

"My lord, let others live in denial."

Hades only squeezed her shoulders a bit, but didn't bother to hide a half smirk. "Oh, I expect I'll have some very annoying company drop by soon enough to make an ancient deal."


End file.
